The Kingston Suspects
by Zeech
Summary: In a Port Antonio jail, Jack Sparrow and Commodore Norrington stand accused of killing a Spanish Captain. Their only hope of not hanging is to convince an admiral that their story (bounty hunters, chinese fortune tellers, phantom ships, and rum) is true.
1. The Kingston Suspects

**Authors Note: **This was inspired by **A Restless Parallel**, a vignette I wrote earlier. I don't want to call it a companion, because I would prefer that fanfic to stand alone – but you can relate the two if you want to. This is a more humorous take on the situation of Norrington hunting Sparrow. It's a mix of humor and drama, though the first chapter is rather silly. I hope you enjoy it, it's going to be an interesting ride (huhuh – okay, corny and vague reference there) for these two. I have a habit of torturing characters.

_Disclaimer: I own naught but the clothes on my friggin' back. Thank you. _

--- --- --- 

**The Kingston Suspects******

_A fanfiction by **Zeech**_

Commodore Norrington did not clearly remember the last time he ever looked out of a jail cell from the inside of it, nor the last time his head had pounded quite so hard. In fact, everything he would normally never engage in had become so commonplace as of late that for some reason he didn't find any of his current situation surprising.

In twenty-four hours he would stand trial for the murder of a Captain alongside the side of the infamous Jack Sparrow, and if all luck completely fell through they would both be swinging from the gallows before the following Monday. The commodore felt an urge to smirk despite himself, but his cheek being pressed hard into the stonewall made a wry expression impossible to write itself across his face. He was vaguely aware of the straw beneath the bare part of his legs, his shins, and a draft of cool sea air floating in from the bars just over his head.

The heavy iron cell door squealed as loud as nails on a blackboard, and the nerve-shredding sound caught his groggy attention. Norrington gingerly turned his head with as little effort as possible, but the pounding started up again anyway. With a muttered a curse and a half-cough, he regarded the new visitor as respectfully as possible - jaw slack with his bloodshot eyes raw, dry and hardly focused. 

"You there," The marine said sharply, as if there were someone else in the cell he was talking to. Norrington surveyed his surroundings briefly, and pointed at himself for confirmation. The marine ignored him. "Someone wants to see you."

"Who?" His voice was a rough variation of itself, and Norrington's dark brows furrowed in a suspicious puzzlement too deep than he really should have been able to manage at this point.

"Admiral Hawk," The young man answered as if his voice was coming up from a constricted pipe in his throat, and he stood completely erect and sure to make no eye contact with the commodore. The red of his uniform blazed far too bright for Norrington at the moment, but he still came slowly to his feet, if only out of sheer politeness. The ground felt unsteady beneath the heavy souls of his boots, and he rather than walking he could only stumble on to the door. The marine nodded, awkwardly. "Right then. Come on." A strong fingered hand fit over his elbow and with a jolt began to guide him along. 

Part of Norrington was distantly ashamed of his current appearance: a tattered, wind-stained white shirt that was far too large for his lean frame and hung about him like skin on a starving man's bones. Gray trousers torn at the knees and splotched with browning blood, and a pair of coarse leather boots that were strapped loosely around his ankles. He had lost his hat sometime the night before he awakened in a Port Antonio jail. 

And there had been absolutely no sign of Jack since they had been separated two nights ago. 

Norrington attempted to correct his posture, aware more so than before of how much easier it would be to convince them of his identity if he wore his usual demeanor, and tried his best to shrug off the effects of alcohol and a night of sleeping on a straw covered stone floor. 

"Um, marine," he began, clearing his throat to free his voice. The marine did not look at him still, but nodded in acknowledgment. "Where - where exactly are we?"

"This here is Fort George." The young man replied simply, offering nothing else in explanation, not even a sidelong glance. For some reason it made the commodore feel very out of place, and even more like how he looked: like a scallywag just getting over a hangover. He frowned, and before he was able to respond with at least proper thanks for not being ignored, the marine came to a halt at one of the doors. White, polished, with the strong smell of hardly dry paint and sawdust thick in the air. The marine looked at him. "Now you stand right there. You try to bolt, and those lads'll shoot you dead in less than the time it takes to reach the end of the hall."

"Understood," Norrington said patiently, giving the marines at either end of the long hallway a quick glance. He blinked hard; shaking his head hard, once, to clear the cobwebs and smoke that still lingered around his judgment. The marine disappeared into the room, and after a few moments of low murmurs, reappeared. 

"Admiral Hawk'll see you now," he said, holding the door open wide enough for Norrington to step past him and into the wide room. This was much like his office back in Port Royal, comfortable and luxurious with a splendid view of the harbor.

There was a heavyset man by the window, back turned to Norrington with beefy arms folded behind his back - almost mirroring the commodore's stance save for the minor differences in clothing. He turned upon hearing Norrington enter, and only had a frown to offer both Norrington and the marine. His pudgy face was pale and blended far too well with the white powered wig atop his head, making the creases in his brow appear deeper than they should have been. 

"Yes, thank you. Leave us."

"Aye, sir." The marine gave a quick salute, which was waved away dismissively by the admiral, and shut the door on his way out. The old admiral took a moment to brush a glance over Norrington, and the expression on his face made the younger man suddenly very aware of his posture again. Finally, he gestured to the chair placed across from his own seat.

"Are you aware of why you're in the prison of Fort George, sir?" Hawk asked, out of the blue, and Norrington frowned at him as he lowered himself carefully into the pulled chair. Hawk mirrored his bewildered expression, almost mockingly, and began again, "Do not tell me you're still drunk - "

"No, sir – Admiral Hawk, sir," Norrington stammered, and sought for his diplomatic voice. Instead, what he was given was the tone often used giving orders to his young lieutenants – while lacking the true respect an admiral deserved, it still held a respect to any other decent sort of man. Save pirates. "There has been a terrible mistake, you see, I – "

"Yes, you're set to hang for the murder of a Spanish Captain," Admiral Hawk interrupted. His stare was disapproving, and fairly condescending. "That's the terrible mistake, no?"

"Well, one of them, sir," Norrington replied testily, silently reminding himself to keep his temper in check. He kept his chin up, and his stern blue eyes level with the admiral's. "My name is James Norrington, Commodore James Norrington of His Majesty's Royal Navy, and I believe your hanging me tomorrow will be a grave mistake."

Admiral Hawk was silent for a moment longer, still staring at him a bit distantly. Then he snorted a quiet laugh. "Oh? Commodore Norrington, is it? Well, I suppose even if I did believe that you were a commodore – though you do look a bit young. How old are you?"

"Thirty four years, sir," Norrington answered automatically. It had become a habit to tell the truth about his age, despite the astonished looks it always earned him. In a way he was proud of it for having accomplished so much in such a short time, but there was always the distrusting set of looks that came with it. The ones that questioned his ability to do the job. The admiral was giving him a look of complete disbelief, and his arms were crossed over his chest in possibly the most skeptical manner Norrington had ever seen a man take into form. 

"Thirty four years and a commodore already. Well. Even if I believed you, there is still the matter of a dead Spanish Captain and almost one hundred witnesses declaring you the killer." Both of the bushy gray brows rose high on the other man's forehead, and Norrington found his own face faulting once again in the childish fascination of how many wrinkles Admiral Hawk could make just on his forehead. He snapped himself out of it, shut his mouth with a click of his teeth, and straightened again.

"Well, yes, I killed him. I cannot deny what several others have witnessed-"

"'Commodore', we're not speaking of 'several others', I said almost a hundred and I meant it," the admiral's voice had gone beyond 'no nonsense'. It was grave, and dangerous. Hawk came to his seat with a continuing, almost pitying stare at the young man. "That is enough to have you swing this very hour, but it is I that have decided to keep you alive. I wish to hear your version of the facts."

That caught him by surprised. Until now the admiral seemed to have been playing a mental game with him, but now there was nothing dishonest in the eyes of the old man. Norrington still shifted uneasily. "And if you believe me?"

"Don't jump too far ahead of yourself, 'Commodore', you have yet to explain why you've been in the company of a pirate these past days," The admiral caught that tone again, and waited a moment for a reaction. He was beginning to sound more like an old uncle scolding an erring child, rather than a superior officer. Norrington blanched, and Admiral Hawk laughed loudly. "Oh! You haven't forgotten everything!"

"You've seen Sparrow?"

"Seen him? Several times I've tried to get some answers out of him, but I can't tell if the man is mad, drunk, or just plain stupid," Hawk admitted bluntly. He rolled his eyes and exhaled hard, leaning back into his chair and massaging the bridge of his nose. Norrington might have laughed at that anywhere else – Jack Sparrow seemed to have the same effect on everyone. "Might I get some answers from you?"

Norrington nodded curtly, if not too eagerly. "Of course, Admiral."

"Good. Let's hear it."

"I…well, I had been pursuing the trail of the Black Pearl, a notorious pirate threat, for a near two weeks," He began, with his arms still twisted behind his back, Norrington did his best to get comfortable in the little wooden chair. He knew it would be a long while before he would be able to really move again. "They lead us on a wild goose chase, and by the time they thought we'd lost them, my men spotted them in Kingston's harbor."

Admiral Hawk smirked, and folded his legs over one another as he set his feet on his desk. He lounged in his chair leisurely, though the suspicion in his eyes was not so easy going. "Really?"

"Yes, sir. We thought to have had it all planned so perfectly," Norrington recalled, lifting his chin a bit to improve his own image. His voice went on in the same tone of propriety. "There was only one problem."

-----

~Three weeks earlier~

-----

"The Black Pearl has replaced her signature sails, sir," Gillette's voice was mild as always, masked with an ill-fitting ease that really only those who knew him could see through. He stood by the commodore with his slightly smaller shoulders back, and an uncomfortable look on his face as he scanned the harbor. He narrowed his pale eyes against the sun. "She doesn't stand out anymore. We could have passed her up and not even known it, sir."

Norrington grunted in acknowledgment, informally bent over the railing of the Dauntless and peering through a spyglass; a smirk tugged at his otherwise flat line of a mouth. "Lt. Gillette, you have no faith. Jack Sparrow is incapable of hiding. Even in a crowd of his own kind he sticks out like a sore thumb." The commodore took a moment to glance over at the other man. "Just keep your eyes open for anything out of the ordinary, any blunder in the natural procedure of things in Kingston's harbor."

"Aye, sir." Gillette frowned, and once again he turned his face up to the blaring sun overhead, bringing a scooped hand to shade his eyes against its wrath. Gulls cried as they glided over the deck of the Dauntless, and the distant sound of collective chattering filled the gaping silence between them. 

The problem was that everything in the harbor seemed one hundred percent of the ordinary, and not even traffic was disagreeable in the slow moving peace of the afternoon. As pleasing at the scene should have been for a young lieutenant, Gillette found it rather unsatisfying. He curled his lip in a snarl, but said nothing to his superior.

Norrington was a bit too preoccupied in his search to pick up the oddly placed racket coming from the starboard side, but a familiar stench whiffed thickly past Gillette's face. He grimaced immediately, and upon turning to identify the source, instantly spotted it.

"Commodore, sir,"

"Lieutenant."

"Sails billowing with smoke and flame...do you consider that a blunder in the natural procedures of Kingston's harbor, or are more cunning forces at work here?" Gillette arched both brows innocently, with sincere curiosity, when Norrington began to comment on how sarcasm was not appreciated. "Do you think Sparrow spotted us, sir?"

Norrington compacted the spyglass and thrust it into his second lieutenant's middle, passing quickly to the starboard side of the Dauntless and making it just in time to see the entire mast of the Black Pearl burst completely into raging flame. The heat of it almost reached his face, but the sea breeze swept in to ward it off.

With a wry smile, the commodore breathed in the familiar scent of smoke and burning wood, adding a distinct flavor to his mood as he watched people struggle to contain the fire. The Black Pearl would not be sailing today, and if her mast and sails were replaced anytime in the next month it would be a sheer act of the Holier powers. 

But better yet, her crew was stranded in the humble port of Kingston, Jamaica, with no way out.

~~~

"Wait, wait," The admiral interrupted Norrington with a wave of his hand, and gestured to the open diary spread upon his cluttered desk. "Mr. Sparrow claims it was not the Black Pearl herself, but another merchant ship he 'later found out to be called the Notorious Okabojee, a blackguard scallywag the commodore should have been searching for all along rather than wasting manpower on the likes of myself'."

Hawk recounted Jack's words casually (though it sounded as if he were repressing a smile), and then regarded Norrington coolly through a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles. "...And according to him, you only found the Pearl because of all the ruckus and confusion caused by the Okabojee's spontaneous combustion."

Norrington remained unmoved, though an irritated note found its way into his tone. "According to the account of Jack Sparrow, sir?"

Hawk tapped the parchment with barely legible scribbles, and held a finger up decisively. "_Captain_ Jack Sparrow, he insists. You may read it for yourself, if you like."

Norrington politely declined with a shake of his dark head. "I see. And did he tell you about how he single handedly put the fire out himself while also managing to save nine children single-handedly?"

Admiral Hawk frowned, and bent back over the diary, tracing his finger along one of the scribbled lines. Hawk looked back up to Norrington, his brows raised in unfeigned amusement. "And one puppy."

The commodore smiled a humorless, nasty smile.

--- --- ---

Roughly an hour later, the fire that crippled the infamous Black Pearl had been quenched, having the crew of the Dauntless to thank for their sharp intervention, and of course the one mad captain that refused to leave his ship behind and watch it burn.

She still smoked, and hissed in patches where the heat still fevered the salvageable wood. The ragged Black Pearl stank of soot, and the smoke rose in long tendrils of thick cloud, hovering about the scorched deck and weaving itself into the otherwise clear blue sky. 

"Repairs for this will cost you an arm and a leg, Sparrow," Norrington mused with mild interest as he grazed the scene, setting his arms respectfully behind his back. He craned his neck to squint up at the black mast, tattered with bits of burnt sail. His glance moved over to where two marines were holding Jack Sparrow, and a smarmy bit of a smile escaped his control. "We're almost doing you a favor, here."

"You'll have to forgive me for not thanking you, mate," Jack drawled huskily, and his voice was grainy from the battle with the smoke. "But I'd rather stay here and give me arm and me leg for the Pearl's repairs."

"Is that right?"

"I've got a terrible fear of hangin', is right," Jack put in, not bothering to hide the bleakness of his situation even to one he knew stole far too much pleasure from a pirate's misfortune. He was so sullen it was almost childlike, and his dark hair hung heavily around his tanned face in drenched pieces that still dripped of seawater. The liner bled black below the lower lashes of his bleary eyes.

In one last attempt to escape the commodore's men, Jack had actually leapt overboard and attempted to swim away. The noble effort failed, however, when he'd been seized by a local fisherman's net, reeled in, and dumped like a trout on the deck of the Dauntless. His crew was nowhere to be found. 

"I thought you might," Norrington remarked dryly, giving the other man a thoughtless sidelong glance before running a bare fingertip along the soot and ash sprinkled railing. He turned his finger over and with an absent frown examined the black powder he'd collected. From the corner of his eyes he saw Jack flash a quick, golden grin. 

"You know me too well, Commodore."

"Too well for my liking," Norrington murmured, earning a laugh from Jack. While a month ago they had been paired together by fortune alone to complete the daunting task of saving the lives of both Elizabeth Swann and Will Turner – as well as stopping a damned crew from wiping out all life on the Dauntless, (and Jack Sparrow had proved to have a speck of loyalty in his blood after all) Norrington's opinion of him had not changed enough to let him ride the untamed seas and plunder to his heart's contentment.

A begrudging (and barely standing) respect was the only thing he held for Jack Sparrow now. With a little roll of his dark blue eyes, Norrington tried to remind himself why he even held that much. 

The commodore cleared his throat, and turned neatly on the heel of his boot to face Jack, his expression bearing his smug triumph a little too heavily. The pirate, however, regarded him solemnly from behind shineless dark brown eyes that spoke of nothing. Unreadable. Norrington could be just as unreadable, only he was the one who could afford the bit of a smile. 

"Now then," he started, briskly. "If you'll kindly accompany my men and I to the Dauntless, you'll be read whatever rights you just might have left, and then set up in the luxurious living quarters we've come to call the brig."

"You, sir, need to learn to clip your sentences a bit shorter," Jack advised with one of his brows bent in a manner one might hold while questioning the right of another being to exist on the same plane as he. He held a finger up and vaguely pointed in the general direction of Norrington's chest. "Lemme guess...commodore. I've got myself a date with the gallows and you'd hate for me to be late?" When Norrington only tilted his head and didn't alter his expressionless features, Jack shook his head. "Terrible clichés mate."

Norrington, deadpanned, waited another moment of regarding Jack Sparrow with polite disinterest. Then, "Are you quite finished?"

"Ah – yes." He held both hands out, together, so a marine could clamp irons onto his wrists, and took several steps closer to Norrington – Jack had a bad habit of getting too close to others. "Now, may I see my luxurious living quarters?"

With an irritated groan, Norrington maneuvered away from the violating position of the pirate and signaled to the marines to slap the irons on. Without another word he made for the boats. 

---

"You know, he does – Mr. Sparrow does have a point...throughout this entire telling he has you constantly resorting to clichés," Hawk said, and skimmed the thick pages of the diary, his old face contorted in an expression crossing a puzzled frown and amused twist. Norrington exhaled hard through his nose, impatient, yet he managed to occupy himself with biting the inside of his cheek, so as not to let anything nasty or sarcastic slip out. This admiral seemed to have a Jack Sparrow quality himself – while he was all for facts, and details, he rather enjoyed getting a rise out of the younger man.

Not wanting to even consider exactly what Jack had told Admiral Hawk about the last week, Norrington tried to steer his thoughts away from it, but some part of him knew that with a proper amount of laudanum and rum, Sparrow would have gone on for hours about anything.

Admiral Hawk had stopped talking, and the silence brought Norrington back to the skeptical pale eyes of the other man. He cleared his throat, and found he had to straighten himself in the chair again – his arms were still twisted behind his back, and they were beginning to lose all of their feeling. They felt heavy, almost detached as a piece of baggage hanging from his shoulders.

"Admiral Hawk, may I inquire something of you?"

With a shallow laugh that made Norrington feel even more ridiculous than when he had been roused in his cell that morning, the admiral waved carelessly at him. "Oh, why not."

"Do you believe even a word I'm saying?"

"You?" The admiral gave a considering glance to the diary before him, and shrugged one of the smartly decorated blue shoulders. "Well I certainly find it more probable than...most of everything that came out of Mr. Sparrow's mouth, if that is any comfort, 'Commodore'." Hawk finished, and leaned his chin lazily on his palm, and when he caught the expression on Norrington's face he almost looked pitying. "Relax, man, you're far too tense. That vein in your forehead is just begging to burst."

Norrington's eyes shot to their tops, as if for a moment he tried to actually see his forehead, but then just let his shoulders slump and regarded Hawk incredulously. "With all due respect, sir," he finally bit out. "You've given me no hint as to what exactly Mr. Sparrow put in that testimony and it could mean my neck. Yes, I am very tense."

"Well..." Admiral Hawk scratched his head thoughtfully, and he once again made to flip through the account of Jack Sparrow. Norrington was tempted to snatch it up and read it himself, if only to just quench his itching curiosity (and worry). "To be perfectly honest, I would encourage the man to turn this account into a gentleman's publication if he weren't set to hang. Everything in it is so fantastic it drags the reader right in, and at the same time...grotesquely mutilates the mere concept of rational thought and reason."

"Forgive my blatant plea," Norrington quickly interjected, and the admiral politely closed the diary to listen. He had never felt so ridiculous for begging in his life. Nor so desperate. "But while considering whether or not to terminate the two of us would you at least attempt to purge every memory of Mr. Sparrow's testimony from your mind?"

That made Admiral Hawk laugh, hard. "Why do you think I dragged you in here, to show you a view of the harbor? If I relied on Mr. Sparrow's account I'd have you both locked up in an attic for contagious madness!" 

Norrington opened his mouth to respond, and but was lost for any kind of words to improve even the slightest detail of his current situation. He was annoyed, dreading, worrisome, and humiliated all at once – the combination of all four sensations was enough to make him physically ill. The younger man drew in a quick breath, and looked to the side, only raising more laughter from Admiral Hawk. He seemed to be the center of this man's entertainment, and quite frankly it was getting irritating.

"Very well, then, continue," Hawk wheezed between chuckles, and to the marine in the back of the wide office he motioned to approach. "Remove the prisoner's clamps, will you?"

"Thank you, sir," Norrington bit out, jaws set so tight his backset of teeth began to ache in his skull. The admiral nodded, and gestured for him to continue.

"So you brought the pirate back to the Dauntless?"

"That's right."

"And then?"

"Well," Norrington began again, turning his head briefly to watch the marine remove the clamps from his chaffed, sore wrists. "I...suppose Mr. Sparrow didn't think I meant what I said about those 'living quarters'."

"How do you mean?"

"He honestly thought we were going to leave him aboard the Pearl and carry on with our business," he said, distractedly. Norrington furrowed his brows at the new sensation of being able to pull his arms back to his front, and he crossed them over his chest protectively. The admiral repressed another laugh, and urged his genuine interest, 

"I assume he resisted arrest?"

"You might say that," Something in Norrington's smooth tone took a nosedive into uncertainty. He straightened again, and lifted his chin. "In my own defense, trying to get one pirate off of a ship he loves probably more than his mother is...in no way as easy as one would think."

--- --- --- 

"No! I'm not going, so you gents can just put away your little guns and little spears and just row away!" Jack had attached himself to the railing of the Black Pearl after a successful near-escape, and had literally re-clamped himself around it. "Because there's no bloody chance in the pit of Hades I'm leavin' me ship!" He snarled at the marines around him, who were torn between amusement and bewilderment. They were hesitant to touch him.

Several bolder souls finally seized him bodily, and were heaving backwards with all their strength to remove him from the railing with little success. Ten or so more minutes of this and Norrington actually had to re-board the ship to reason with Jack himself. 

When he approached the marines immediately dropped Jack, and his knees hit the hard wood deck with a loud crack. After spouting a curse, Jack's determined eyes fell upon the commodore, and he pulled closer to the railing. 

Norrington folded his hands at the small of his back, and tilted his head at the pirate; unimpressed.

"Mr. Sparrow," he snapped suddenly, and Jack jumped. "If you do not remove yourself from this ship my men will have to take you one piece at a time. Do I make myself clear?"

Jack narrowed his eyes at the commodore, and once again sprang a bony soot-smudged finger from his clenched fist, shaking it fiercely at the other man. "You are all talk, mate, and if you think anywhere in the bounds of your pointy little hat that –"

"Marines!"

When several bayonets thrust out to be within a mere inch of Jack's halfway exposed ribcage he immediately stopped talking, and seemed to fall back into a more reasonable mood. Jack made a vain attempt to inch away from them, and the end result told him it was impossible.

Five minutes later he was seated in the center of a lifeboat, shoulders slumped and gaze set forward as if a schoolmaster had rapped his knuckles. He gave a melodramatic sigh, and twisted to give the Black Pearl one last look.

---

"I suppose I should disregard the part in Mr. Sparrow's account where he single-handedly battled each of your men with their own weapons and ended up surrendering only because you offered him rum, and a balcony seat at the next opera you attended?"

Norrington arched a brow. "I beg your pardon?"


	2. Captain Dominic Ferdinand Hidalgo Franci...

**Author's Note: **Here it is, chapitre deux! I'm glad you all like the last one. This one was considerably harder to write. Long, you know…gah, it's hard to stay in characterization, as I was saying to a friend of mine at lunch the other day. Upon considering writing Jack's point of view, we decided it would be near impossible. You can't actually enter that man's mind, you can only observe. Blah. Hope I'm doing well. **Enjoy this**, and thank you for the reviews!

--- --- ---

**CHAPTER TWO:** **DOMINIC FERDINAND HIDALGO FRANCISCO THE MAGNIFICENT **

--- --- ---

They had remained in Kingston for hours after to restock supplies, and by the dimming of the afternoon they had gone underway again. Jack Sparrow had not said three words all night, which had, needless to say, not pulled any complaints out of the commodore. 

When the day faded into a starlit evening, Jack stirred within the dankness of his cell. 

"'Ey. You there," Jack strung his arms through the widely spaced bars, taking a moment to scowl at the chipping black paint, and then leaning over thoughtfully. The marine at his cell did not even acknowledge his existence. Jack reached out and nudged the stiff red sleeve of his uniform. "I know you can hear me, lad."

"The commodore says we're not to speak to you, or you to us." The young man replied stiffly, almost giving in and casting the pirate a side glance of nervous blue eyes and flaring nostrils. Jack rolled his eyes, and tipped his hat back further on his head. 

"And why'd he say that?"

"Because you're a bad influence."

"Me?" Jack laughed at that, and stepped out of the bars to remove his hat and sweep a little triumphant bow. "Always happy to be of service, though I'm harmless to the likes of you if I do say so myself."

The marine cleared his throat, and frowned at the opposite wall when once again he resisted looking at Jack. "They say you're raving mad."

"Raving mad," Jack repeated a bit distantly as he fed his arms through the bars again, and rest his chin on his forearm. His hat twisted upwards against the steel as he leaned into it. "Well sometimes I wake up and don't know where I am, mate, but that can happen to any man. D'you think that can be constituted as 'raving mad'?"

The marine finally turned his head and shot him a disapproving look like he wanted to say something, but then snapped his gaze straight ahead again. Jack laughed.

"Or, did you go the extra step and think to yourself how exactly a man such as myself can be so articulate and yet raving mad at the same time?" Jack straightened again, and spread his hands apart to fully display himself. He grinned. "There's more to me than a bucket of black goo and an irresistibly charming smile, m'lad."  
"See, it's talkin' like that that gets those rumors started," the marine stammered, taking a small side-step away from the bars and going as far as to wave him away. "Now go on, behave yourself! Stop talking to me!"

"I can't, I'm lonely," Jack admitted, though whether or not sincerity could be found in anything Jack Sparrow ever said was a complete mystery. He leaned down on his folded arms, chin pressed against his shoulder and muffling his words. "Gets boring down here...I know! I've got it!"

"What."

"You can take me to see the Commodore Norrington, he'd like that." Jack encouraged, and motioned for him to unlock the cell. "Well come on!" The marine made a suspicious face, and shook his head hard at Jack. "What?  'E would, we're mates!"

"If you an' the commodore are mates then I'm Sir Francis Drake."

"Well, Mr. Drake, if you'd be so kind as to – "

"I'm not him," The marine interrupted rudely, fixing Jack with a murderous glare for making him talk this long. "And you're no friend of the commodore. He's a respectable sort."

"Are you saying' I'm not respectable, mate?" Jack asked defensively, repressing a smile beneath his dark mustache, as the marine seemed to transform into several different colors before landing on the hue of a tomato. 

"Will you just be quiet?!" 

"What do you have to lose?" Jack encouraged, his voice soft and almost convincing as he leaned into the bars almost far enough to reach out and grab the marine. He almost got yelled at again, but the flustered young officer didn't seem willing to waste the breath. He only snorted at him and straightened again, indignantly. Jack cleared his throat in the awkward silence, and then added with a little move of his head, as plainly as ever, "You've got a whole lot more to lose if you don't take me to see him then if you do." 

"Right. That won't work, so just bugger off."

"Oh, I really mean it. You know the story of how the commodore caught me this time 'round, eh?" 

The marine turned deadpanned eyes, and raised skeptical brows. "Aye, I heard it. Something about your sails catching fire and you diving boots first into the bay."

"Yes, but why would a scallywag like myself let the ship he loves probably more than his mother randomly catch fire?" The pirate challenged with a glimpse of bottled excitement sparking across his features for the moment the words occupied him. The marine looked unimpressed, but not untouched. He tried,

"Because he's an irresponsible scallywag with nothing in his future but a hangman, a noose, and God's undeserved mercy."

Jack didn't miss a beat, but still managed a convincing kicked puppy look. He started as quickly as he had stopped, and even offered a quick laugh. "For friendships sake I'll ignore that and tell you any way."

"Don't trouble yourself."

"You see, it's quite simple really," The marine made a wordless frustrated noise in the back of is throat, but Jack just reached out and lightly jabbed his red shoulder. "The Pearl met with some unexpected company outside the harbor, mate. The Fantana, heard of it?" Jack's dark brows raised over his shadowed eyes, and his mouth spread into a smile as the marine shook his head. "Course you haven't. She's a Spanish ship, those don't wander into Kingston very often."

"If there's a point please feel free to come to it."

"I'm only saying the Fantana is after me," Jack finished, leaning into the bars again carelessly. He glanced up in time to see the marine blanch, and Jack Sparrow grinned viciously. "And her captain'll be stopping at nothing to have me neck swinging from a Spanish noose." 

The marine relaxed, after a considering pause. "That's no problem. The commodore'll just hand you on over to the Fantana, and let them deal with the likes of you."

"No, mate," Jack answered, frankly. Danger lurked in that thoughtless smile, and the young man outside the jail cell unconsciously curled his fingers tighter about his weapon. "The Fantana isn't one of those to sail by the common codes of decency. She'll take what she comes for, and then blow the Dauntless out of the water."

--- --- --- 

"I always did like nights like these," Commodore Norrington gripped his fork lightly between his middle and forefinger, absently studying the way the unbalanced metal shifted weight from side to side. "An almost windless night."

"And hardly a better one you've had, Commodore," Doctor Garrett, the ship's surgeon remarked lazily. He leaned far back in his chair, so the wood beneath his lean form creaked as he stretched his legs out before him. "You bagged Sparrow easily enough, and you have us underway, back to Port Royal."

"Yes, well, pulling back to port is all I could possibly desire at this point." 

"You've never been so eager to be home in all our years, Norrington. Something troubles you?"

Norrington flicked his contemplative gaze briefly over to Dr. Garrett. He grunted in amusement, and flipped the fork back into a more sensible position. "No, I wouldn't say that. There's just no point in dawdling around the sea when my duties await me in Port Royal."

"Yes, I keep forgetting you're a commodore now," The doctor chewed thoughtfully, moving a piece of eaten bread around in the bowl of his soup with his spoon. He furrowed graying brows. "Do you remember landing twenty miles from Montego Bay? All along that coast?" 

"You've asked me that every week for a month now, Garrett, and I keep telling you I don't remember much after running aground," Norrington reminded him mildly, unexpectedly stabbing a green bean on the spikes of his fork, and quickly putting it into his mouth. He chewed, swallowed, and queried suspiciously, "Did I get drunk and dance naked around a camp fire, is that why you keep asking?"

Garrett made an alarmed noise in the back of his throat, and threw a questioning glance in Norrington's direction. "What?"

Norrington snorted lightly and impaled another green bean. "What brings that to mind?"

"Just...you used to enjoy your work more, is all. Saw it in your eyes, we all did."

"I suppose that comes with getting older. You know, responsibility," Norrington emphasized the word good naturedly despite the wide gap in the doctor's and his age – Garrett was nearly twenty years his senior, and yet Norrington still felt he always played the part of the older man. "And who is 'we' anyway?"

"Oh," Garrett swallowed. "Crew. And myself."

"Well now I know what I've been missing during the brandy hour," Norrington remarked dryly. He shrugged. "I didn't come into the Navy to enjoy myself, I came to work. To make something of myself, and it along the way it all meant more than I could possibly have anticipated. Now I've achieved one of my highest goals."  Feeling the eyes of the doctor on him he looked up to meet them. "There's a time when boys have to become men, doctor. I discovered that early on."

"Oh, yes," Garrett nodded enthusiastically. "Your father would be very proud."

"Well," the commodore smiled quietly to himself, though the image of it was not so convincing; the way his mouth twisted at the ends could not really be described as a smile. More a satisfied expression of a man willing to settle and continue with the path his life was leading him down. "It was his idea I join the navy. He told me I would find meaning."

"Aye, and a fine one." Garrett shook a finger at Norrington, earning a little chuckle from the stoic young man. "You were one of the youngest captains, and now one of the youngest commodores. Meaning, indeed."

Meaning. Of course. There had been plenty of meaning in his life with every adventure he had come across as a young officer in the service of the King. For a fleeting moment he was thrown back to his first captain years – returning to port and describing each and every one of his sea tales to the Swann family, watching Elizabeth, only a girl then, giggle and clap at the climax of the story. It had become one of his favorite pastimes. 

Now the title was the job, and Norrington, as a commodore, was to surrender his ship to some green captain, and find an office in the fort back home. Strangely enough, where other captains his age would fight the concept until raw, Norrington had no objections. There was no more Elizabeth to impress, and dark as it seemed to him sometimes, no reason to keep climbing the ladder.

A knock rattled on the heavy oak doors of his cabin, and Norrington frowned upon turning to face them. He had specifically ordered no interruptions. "Yes?"

"Apologies, sir, but..." the officer outside hesitated, indicating to Norrington that it certainly wasn't Gillette's voice he was hearing. There was a slight scuffling noise behind the frosted glass, and then, "Mr. Sparrow wishes to speak with you."

"No, tell him I wish to negotiate with him." Sparrow's voice, muffled.

"No, I told him what I told him, and if he says go away then I'll hog tie you!"

"Your father slapped you around when you were a boy, din't he, lad?"

There was a vicious, but inaudible retort from the marine, and finally his voice came again through the wood. "Commodore, are you in there, sir?"

"Marine, what is Mr. Sparrow doing out of his cell?" From across the table the doctor arched a brow at Norrington, and the young commodore glanced over his shoulder again towards the source of disturbance. "I ordered you not speak to him."

"Sir, I know you did, sir, but he says it's urgent!"

"Tell him it's a matter of life an' death, mate."

"Do I have to gag you?!" 

Norrington glanced over at the doctor and rolled his stern blue eyes, waving at the door before turning around in his chair again and resting his ankle on his opposite knee. "Come in, then."  The heavy doors were silently pushed open, save for the grunt of effort from the marine. 

Jack didn't even wait to be escorted in before tromping inside, quickly surveying his surroundings, and then sitting down in the chair nearest the commodore. His hands were still bound, but he didn't complain. Jack nodded to Norrington. "That was nice of you."

"Don't mistake my agitated curiosity for hospitality, Sparrow," Norrington watched the pirate's face change considerably, from a sort of unreadable optimistic to a puzzled frown. He cleared his throat. "Whatever it is had better be urgent as you say it is. Marine, leave us."

"Thanks, mate," Jack said to the marine, waving him away and receiving a silent snarl from the indignant young man. The oak doors closed neatly, and Jack turned back to Norrington. "Right, then, where were we?"

"You were interrupting my dinner."

"Right, right." Jack scooted up to the edge of his chair, and spoke with his hands. "There's something I didn't tell you before about my being in Kingston."

"You're a blithering idiot?"

"Ah, no, mate. You've gotta give me credit for at least trying' to keep me neck as short as it is. I wouldn't have let you catch me that easily. If it were up to me, I'd be playing catch with you all over the Caribbean, Commodore," Jack winked at Norrington, and like a hungry dog with his two front legs arched up expectantly, he leaned over the table and let his gaze fall to the unfinished meal set out. After fixing greedy eyes on Norrington's plate, he reached out and plucked a potato slice up. "Are you going to eat that?"

"Now I'm not," Norrington shoved the plate in Jack's direction, proud, fine features distorted in disgust as the pirate began eating hungrily. "You're welcome."

"Do you not fear the noose, Mr. Sparrow?" Dr. Garrett's tone was worlds more civil than Norrington's, and he observed Jack as if he were a scientific experiment in the making. "Or is there another escape plan awaiting us all in Port Royal?"

"Oh, don't worry, I still fear for me life," Jack nodded fervently toward Norrington with a cheeky smile, his lean cheeks crammed with potato slices. He swallowed hard. "I know you're relieved to hear that, Commodore, but it's true. I've seen a sailor's head pop right off his shoulders from the force of a good rope."

"If you've seen the consequences of your actions then why in God's name do you still engage in piracy?" The doctor questioned, blind to whatever logic Jack was trying to convey. The pirate stared back at him, dark eyes going still and unreadable as he chewed slowly, vacantly.

"Well," he finally began thoughtfully, popping another green bean between his lips. His entire demeanor was simply artless, and Norrington sighed doggedly. "It does cut into one's social life. My lady friend doesn't seem to like me line of work, if you get what I been telling you." Jack swallowed. 

"And what is your lady friend's name?" The doctor seemed to be trying to keep the conversation at least a bit respectable, or even polite - and Norrington just covered his brow with a hand, not wishing to even hear it much less participate. Jack frowned incredulously at Dr. Garrett, and snorted at the startled expression he received.

"How am I supposed to know, I can't keep track of them all."

"There's more than one?"

"Oh, aye, and sometimes she gets attached to me and I have to leave her crying. Never liked that part much, but it's hard to get around these days," Jack shrugged, saying over his shoulder too-casually, "It's a cut-throat business."

"You treat it like it's a normal occupation, man!" 

Jack arched a puzzled brow, and for a moment he looked almost innocent to the judgmental eyes of Commodore Norrington. Before he could get anything else out and further sink the overall integrity of the conversation, the commodore pulled himself up in his chair and waved in sharp dismissal. 

"Yes, yes, back to the topic, Sparrow. Supposedly there was a point to this meeting," Norrington drew his brows together, unimpressed but willing to listen. "You in Kingston, just under our noses without so much as a prayer. Why?"

Jack gulped down two more potato slices, and he pushed the plate again with one of bound, still soot-covered hands. "Long story short?"

"Please."

"Well, to be perfectly honest I'm being hunted by vicious bounty hunters all serving under the flag of one Spanish captain that would very much like to have me skin hanging on his wall."

"Of course." Norrington shifted, skeptical. He smiled vacantly, folding his hands over his lap. "And you tell us now?" At that Jack cocked his head, decorations all rattling together as his abundant dark hair fell to the side. It was as if he felt Norrington's distrust was the element at fault. 

"As a friendly warning, mate," he finally clarified, offering a slight smile that received only one of Norrington's famous eye-rolls. "The Fantana will come for me, but she'll also take the Dauntless as a prize ship. Very greedy, that one."

"Vicious bounty hunters, right.  So you're saying instead of turning you over to these 'bounty hunters', we should avoid them completely."

"Exactly!"

"That still doesn't save your neck, Sparrow." 

Jack flashed a grin too arrogant for his easy character. "You don't have the heart to try and hang me again, commodore."

"I assure you, I have every intention of watching you swing from the gallows." Norrington actually sounded quite sincere, with that unchanging tone and resilient stern glance that never seemed to go tarnished even after hours of wear. 

"But," Jack stopped him pointedly, a delicate finger in the air. Norrington waited, his expression unintentionally quizzical. "It would break dear Elizabeth's heart, wouldn't it?" Jack reminded him suddenly. A white hot flash of something quite indescribable, jealously, resentment, bitter recollection – it wiped any expression from his sharp features, and the moment the words left his lips Norrington to closed within himself. His stern face hardened, dangerously.

"I cannot forgo my duty," Norrington bit out, voice completely void of even a single tremble. He watched the pirate obliquely. "…To please Elizabeth Swann, Sparrow."

"Well I suppose that explains why she's not Elizabeth Norrington right now, eh, commodore?" 

Norrington felt himself physically jolt at that, and a muscle leapt in his clenched jaw at the flare of his temper. Doctor Garrett saw the silent exchange between the two men, and he came slowly to his feet with a nod at each of them, sensing the cue for an exit. "Do excuse me gentlemen." Garrett said, a bit awkwardly with another nod at Norrington. His exit was hasty. 

The cabin was silent, and Norrington would not have even noticed a canon ball's impact had it slammed right over his head. At that moment he felt lower than he had in a very long time, and it sank into him like an anchor had been dropped onto his person. Perhaps Jack was right about Elizabeth, and maybe he wasn't. Maybe Elizabeth's choice was conceived when she was no older than ten years and could never have been altered, even by him, but the pain still lingered as strong as the menacing presence of another human being. Jack was, indeed, right, and he hated him for it. 

"Mr. Sparrow," It was cold, his voice. Almost unrecognizable to his own ears. When at one point Norrington might have even admired Jack Sparrow for his aid in rescuing the woman he loved, there was nothing more now but a streak of bitterness that would not soon be gone. "You will be escorted back to your cell without further commentary, do you understand me?"

"That came out wrong, mate, it wasn't your fault Liz didn't love you," Jack made a quick recovery, realizing on instant the mistake he had made. He motioned vaguely with his hands, trying to find the right words that clearly were just not coming out. Something in the eyes just was not right with Jack; they lacked their usual sleaze. Nothing dishonest, no ulterior motive. The image was visually bewildering because of how wrong it looked. Jack's very air was wrong, he always looked confused, or so far from a reality plane that he couldn't even focus for five moments at a time. Norrington drew in a breath to say something, but Jack raised a hand to stop him, and attempted to look appealing. "I think you're a fascinating, charming, dashing young man, commodore-"

"Sparrow – "

"- And I, for one, would marry you, mate, I don't know what was wrong with Bethy," Jack flashed all of his gold and pearl teeth quickly, but it faded when the look Norrington gave was almost tenfold more irate. A blink snapped across Jack's face, and he quickly clarified, "Eh - nothing funny, mate, it's...you know, a compliment."

"First and foremost, you will refer to Elizabeth as Miss Swann, and soon enough Miss Turner," Norrington was surprised he was capable of snapping out that last bit and still keeping his voice steady, and dignified. He stiffened in his seat. "You will not address such a fine young woman as Elizabeth Swann so disrespectfully in my presence again. Not while I still have a sword -"

Jack's near black eyes did not waver, and their shade seemed to alter from something decidedly blank to a steady solemn stare. Meaningful, a rare sight. He seemed unaffected by Norrington's threat, and the commodore found puzzlement rather than insult writ large across his place. Jack's very posture changed. "I was rooting for you, mate," Jack's brows contorted in an almost pitying expression, and his voice lowered. "Don't think I was lying about that."

Norrington closed his mouth, not realizing it had been slack, and he finished slowly, " – to put you back in your place."

Jack snorted at that, and Norrington made a mental note to stricken his overall delivery. He frowned as Jack hunched back over the plate, picking another piece of potato up and raising it to his lips. 

"She was a real catch, though, wouldn't you say, commodore? In all honesty, I'd make a sweep at her – "

"Sparrow!" Norrington snapped, and Jack only glanced back up at him with wide, almost black eyes, chewing slowly. Norrington's hand found the grip of his weapon, and he held a tensed forefinger up in a straight threat. "You go to far, keep your comments to yourself lest you wish me to teach you the manners your mother never bothered to!"****

~~~

"Oh, Lord, no!" The admiral visibly shrank back in his chair, moaning and covering his face with both hands. "Teach him manners – God save you, that's horrible! Where do you come up with these, man?!" 

Norrington inhaled deeply, rolling his eyes up to study the ceiling planks with his tongue in his cheek, letting the admiral's wheezy laughter echo on through the room with a patient grace and not too much of a scowl. Maybe the admiral had not been accused of murder lately, and didn't fully understand the situation that resulted in Norrington's lack of a lighthearted bearing. The admiral held up a hand, still chuckling hard and pinning a hand to his breast.

"Apologies, lad, by all means continue." He finally managed, and Norrington opened his mouth to continue, but the admiral interrupted once again. "Just out of curiosity, how many more of these can I expect?"

Norrington frowned at that, and drew in another sharp breath, his fingers flexing restlessly against the arms of his chair. "Clichés?"

"Yes."

"If that's Mr. Sparrow's account, you can fully expect me to leap up on the table and do an Irish jig." Norrington said in a decidedly dry tone, but when the admiral gave no reply he caught the hesitance in the other man's gaze, and his jaw went slack in sheer disbelief. "No – "

"I, well…" the admiral just motioned with his hand vaguely for Norrington to continue, and raised the diary to shield his face from the young commodore's (probably to hide another eccentric smile. The old man was having far too good a time with this whole ordeal). "What happened next? Did you actually fight him?"

"Oh, um, no…" Norrington casually lifted a shoulder. "Not exactly. We had a few more words, nothing too serious. I have more sense than to fight a pirate in front of my crew. More dignity, rather."

"No doubt about that." The admiral agreed with a chuckle, and reopened the diary to where Norrington and Sparrow's story matched time wise. "Was the Fantana story a lie?"

--- --- ---

The dispute over Elizabeth had been solved easily enough through several dignified threats from Norrington and a Jack Sparrow that retreated with a good grace. It didn't convince Norrington let him stay, however.

"I honestly don't know why you've stayed this long," The commodore commented wryly as Jack was dubiously lead out of the cabin still chewing some of the forgotten potato slices. Norrington nodded to Gillette, who seemed almost too pleased to once again lock the pirate in the bowls of the ship. "But if I have to stand guard myself, you'll not leave your cell again."

"Well if you stood guard I wouldn't have to, mate," Jack reminded him, though his amused grin had twisted into a puzzled frown when he found Norrington was serious (as usual), and he really was being lead back to that little brig. "Suppose it's a good thing ye listened to me warning about the Fantana, eh, commodore?"  
"Mr. Sparrow, I would have to be mad and fevered to ever believe a single word – "

"Commodore!" One of the older lieutenants, Matthews, called from several yards away, catching Norrington off guard. "Sir, there's an unmarked ship approaching!" Norrington narrowed his eyes to see Matthews pull his spyglass and peer through it, then turn back with a lost expression. "She has released the white flag!"

Norrington blanched, literally feeling the blood drain from his face and his stomach, pooling into the soles of his feet. It only occurred to him to glance over at Jack, a disturbing realization dawning on him like a set of cold fingers scrabbling up his back. The look in the other man's dark eyes was solemn, a sort of quiet fear lying in their black shades that unnerved Commodore Norrington. 

He cleared his throat, and drew his brows tight. "Lieutenant Matthews, draw our flag of truce."

"Done, sir," Matthews nodded to several of the midshipmen, and they scampered off to comply. Matthews bent over the railing and peered into the dimming evening. He nodded to the commodore. 

"Commodore, sir, they request permission to come aboard."

"One moment," Norrington said sternly, turning to Jack with a straight-edged stare warning no foolishness from the generally eccentric pirate. "You were telling the truth."

"Interesting how no-one ever believes me until it's too bloody late," Jack remarked despite the sparking tension in the sea air, and one of the marines gave him a little shove. He nodded, gravely. "Aye, it was the truth."

"And this captain. Do you know him?"

"Only by reputation."

"Of course," Norrington muttered with a bitter disposition, and signaled to Matthews. "Very well, granted. We will see how far we can sort this out through a gentlemen's meeting, rather than risking an open battle. That is, if you're not lying about this captain." He added, inclining another distrusting look at Jack Sparrow. 

"I lie about a lot of things, Commodore, that I do," Jack said, softly. "But some truths ought not be bended."

Norrington only arched a skeptical brow at the pirate clutched between two impatient marines, and he nodded to them. "Take Mr. Sparrow back into my cabin. I think it best, in the case that he is telling the truth, that these men do not know we have him."

Jack laughed at that, as the marines lifted his arms up partially to pull him away. "You don't honestly think they're here for conversation, do you, Commodore?"

"One can only hope. Not a word out of you," Norrington warned, harshly, and the marines quickly obeyed the order to lock the pirate in the commodore's cabin. Norrington drew in a deep breath, and folded his arms neatly behind his back, taking easy steps over to join the lieutenants awaiting the little boat that made it's way on over. He stood beside Gillette, and said under his breath, "What do you think."

"I don't like the look of it myself," The younger man replied evenly, tilting his head to get a better view of the large ship, the Fantana, drifting only several yards away from the side of the Dauntless. "But I hardly think a Captain would order his crew to attack while he walked into the hands of the opponent, sir."

"It seems so," Norrington murmured, watchful blue eyes observing quietly as the roped ladder was extended over the port side of the Dauntless, and thumped upon making contact. "However, after the events of the past month I'm having a hard time considering what your average captain would normally do a reliable source."

"Point taken, sir."

"You're a fast learner, Lieutenant." Norrington finished in a low voice, and raised his chin to greet the men coming aboard. They were smartly dressed, decorated with many gold buttons and even a few medals of some sort – dark hair and eyes, and a very charismatic walk. Norrington offered a diplomatic smile. "Welcome aboard, gentlemen. Commodore Norrington, of his Majesty's ship the Dauntless."

One of them stepped forward, leaving the other two men behind him as he removed his hat and swept an exaggerated bow before Norrington. The man quickly straightened as fast as the bow had come, and he lightly place his tri-corner hat back on his dark head, regarding Norrington with a mild expression. "Captain Dominic Ferdinand Hidalgo Francisco," he said in a heavy Spanish accent, and a little smile twisted his mustache upward into his cheek. "The magnificent. It is a pleasure, Commodore Norrington."

"The pleasure is mine, Captain Francisco," Norrington replied with all the politeness he could muster. He half turned in order to face both Gillette and the captain. "My crew welcomes you aboard."

"You are young for your rank," Captain Francisco remarked, out of the blue and catching Norrington off guard. There was something in those surveying eyes that gave Norrington the need to close his face, and become unreadable to the searching eyes of the captain. Part of him was still battling the doubt Sparrow had planted within him. The captain arched a black brow. "I assume a distinguished record has put you in your place, Commodore."

"We in His Majesty's Navy strive for just that, captain," Norrington said, lifting his chin. "I fear I have not been told your reason for boarding my ship, is here anything wrong? May we offer aid?"

"Very kind of you, but no," The captain said, quite obviously disinterested. "It is our belief that you carry the pirate captain Jack Sparrow on your ship. We wish to take him off your hands." The captain raised both brows. "Do you have him here, Commodore?"

~~~

Cheek on his palm, the admiral pushed the wire spectacles down the bridge of his nose and glanced up at Norrington. "Might have been a good idea to lie then, lad."

Norrington cringed inwardly. Indeed. 


	3. Hostages

**Author's Note: **Here she is, chapter three. I apologize for the long wait, a thousand things have happened since I last updated this fanfic. Pyper: Yes, I figured I was doing something wrong. I'm actually in French, but I've got a few friends in Spanish that corrected me. Unfortunately, Captain I-unrealistically-translate-my-name-for-English-Sailors shall have to remain Captain I-unrealistically-translate-my-name-for-English-Sailors. U_U I hope you still enjoy the story. Again, I apologize for the wait and thank you all for your reviews!

--- --- ---

 **CHAPTER THREE: HOSTAGES**

~~~

"With a Spanish ship in firing range, her eccentric – as you say – captain boarding your ship and Mr. Sparrow hidden away in your cabin you…" Admiral Hawk trailed off, and motioned with a wave of his hand for Norrington to finish. "…Well? Inevitably he did discover you had Sparrow…how?"

"We decided to discuss the custody of Mr. Sparrow like gentlemen." Norrington shrugged, but Admiral Hawk's jaw dropped near to the desk surface. 

"You mean you _told_ him you had Sparrow aboard?" The older man sputtered in disbelief. Norrington suddenly felt very stupid. "What happened to leaving that between the officers and yourself, my God, man, whatever happened to strategy?!" The younger man ran a weary hand – thankfully unbound, through his short dark hair and averted his eyes to his lap, trying to think up a response. 

"An honest man, in any case, has nothing to fear –"

"Except in this one, where your honesty clearly almost got you killed –" Admiral Hawk stopped and shook his head, putting his spectacles back up the bridge of his nose and grazing the diary's page with his skeptical eyes. "Yet nevertheless there you stand. Did you consent to giving him Sparrow, or did you refuse?"

Norrington cleared his throat. "No, sir, I…" he paused. "I refused, of course I refused, sir." The admiral's brows rose, and he leaned back in his chair with a somewhat suspicious regard of Norrington, as if he knew the entire truth was not being given. Norrington knew that look all too well, and repressed a wince when the admiral asked him the inevitable question.

"Why?" 

"I did not feel I had the legal right to hand over a prisoner of his Majesty's Navy." The younger man answered, giving his chin a little tilt of confidence, though confidence was the last thing he had at this point with those stern eyes on him. He felt like a midshipman all over again, and holding his breath was all he could do to keep his nerve and not look away. The admiral leaned forward again, and restated his question as if it had never been answered in the first place.

"Why did you lose your ship, and endanger the lives of your crew for the infamous Jack Sparrow?"

--- --- --- 

"Why, indeed," Captain Francisco murmured quietly, his hat gathered in his arm at his side. Norrington exhaled softly, arms folded behind his back as he watched the other man's reaction. The Spanish captain seemed disappointed, but civil about it. "I do not understand your logic, sir, but I will respect it for my part." 

"I thank you for that, Captain," Norrington said with a curt nod of his head, and an inner smile forming. He enjoyed being right most of the time. "My crew and I have already dined, but if I may invite you to have a drink with me…?"

Captain Francisco held up a hand and shook his dark head, fitting his hat over his head and distractedly glancing back to where his men waited by the throw ladder. "With regret I must decline, Commodore Norrington, you see my men and I are keen about our business," he gestured to the dimming sky, and when he glanced back at Norrington grinned, showing both rows of teeth. "And the night is young, no?"

"Well, then," Norrington smiled at the Captain and glanced over his shoulder at the three marines that held Sparrow, receiving a look from the pirate captive he couldn't quite distinguish. The dark eyes watched him, solemn but unreadable. He frowned back, and turned to the Captain again, bowing politely. "I should hope to see you cross our path again sometime, Captain Francisco, and you can rest easy that the convict Jack Sparrow will be paying for his crimes."

"Of that I am glad to hear," Captain Francisco gave a short bow as well. "Farewell, Commodore. I wish you my very best." And he spun on his heel, striding faster than his English escorts over to the boats. Norrington watched him quietly for a long moment, tipping back onto the balls of his feet lazily and keeping his hands behind his back. Norrington turned slowly to face Sparrow, knowing how smug he must have looked at that moment, and the pirate furrowed his dark brows. 

"Proud of yourself, mate?"

Norrington snorted a short laugh, and took a few steps over to where the other man was bound in fresh irons, both his arms being clamped onto by steel faced marines. "It is truly amazing, Mr. Sparrow, how far one can get without having to steal and cheat and wave a rusty sword around," he gave his brow a little jump and smugly spun on his heel. "Take him below."

"But we 'ere having so much fun, Commodore…" Jack attempted, though his grin immediately vanished when the marines began pulling him along again. "Wait, wait, just a moment lads – Commodore," Jack struggled to turn around again, but this time the marines held fast. Norrington did not bother to listen, and without so much as another glance went back into his cabin. "He'll be back, Commodore! I swear me life away on it, he'll be back!"

"Come on, you, Commodore's got more important things to worry about." 

Norrington settled back into his hammock, nodding to the boy that quickly cleared away from his table what was left of he and the doctor's dinner. Outside Jack Sparrow clumsily let his protests be known, but only a moment later was he silenced and escorted back down into the brig. Jack had not lied about being pursued by the Fantana and her captain, and that very fact shadowed Norrington's certainty with an eerie doubt. It was the little things about Sparrow that set his alarm bells off – the man was, for the most part, unreadable. Jack Sparrow had no reason to lie, and from the looks of it, he seemed genuinely frightened when Captain Francisco boarded the Dauntless.

He shook his head once; as if worry was a physical dust he could simply shake away, and let a dry hand slide over his brow. The day had finally brought him to exhaustion, and Norrington was tempted to just fall asleep in his coat and wig. Thoughts of Jack Sparrow and the Fantana finally faded away from his conscious mind, and Norrington drifted off into a dreamless sleep, with the night wind brushing by and the sound of the departing Fantana slowly disappearing. 

It was only two hours later that a spontaneous crash and tremor wracked the ship, and threw him from his sleep. Norrington pulled himself out of his hammock and shakily stumbled to the door, thinking of nothing but answering it before the crewman on the other side broke it down. The ship lurched again, and Norrington hit the oak door hard. The door pushed open, and a frightened midshipman stood with eyes wider than dinner plates.

"Commodore, sir, we're under attack!" 

Norrington shook his head hard, and gripped the doorjamb to support himself. "What?! By who?!" Of course he knew the answer before the young man could stammer it out. Jack Sparrow had been telling the truth, and the Dauntless would have to take on a Spanish war ship with just a skeleton crew aboard. This match would be bloody – and Sparrow had tried to warn him. 

"It's the Fantana, sir!" 

The Fantana. Norrington rubbed the sleep out of his eyes in a split second and darted past the midshipman, stumbling when another canon ball struck the belly of the Dauntless. He spouted a curse when he hit the deck, and several bodies crowded around him, all crying his name and asking him questions about how many fingers they were holding up and whatnot. Norrington shook his head, focusing and pulling himself quickly to his feet.

"Commodore! Commodore!" One pale boy cried, and another. "Commodore, are you all right, sir?!" 

"Gillette!" Norrington shouted over the chaos, quickly scanning the panic of the ship. Officers were running here, there, crewmen were bellow – Gillette must have been below, commanding the guns. He couldn't think, couldn't concentrate – and then another hit struck the ship, and it rattled the deck so hard he fell back again, hitting hard. He practically felt his tailbone bruise. "Gillette, where are you?!" 

"Here, sir!" Gillette was suddenly before him, somewhere in those jerks and wracks. Blood streaked his face, as well as soot. "Sir!"

"Is Jack Sparrow below?!" Norrington demanded, seizing the younger man by the elbows. "Is he still below deck, where is he?"

"Aye, sir, he's in the brig."  Gillette replied, and Norrington immediately released him, taking off again like a shot for the bowels of the ship. Gillette followed him for a few steps longer. "Commodore, sir, are we going to make the exchange?!"

Norrington was certainly considering turning Jack Sparrow over now, but he had no time for regrets, and only scrambled down the hatch and dropped down below. By the time he had reached Sparrow, the pirate had practically squeezed between the iron bars of the brig. His expression upon seeing Norrington was nothing save disinterested, considering all of the marines had left their posts, and Norrington was in no position to stop an escape.

"Happy with yourself, Commodore?" Jack said between gritted teeth, still, in all the noise and excitement, able to keep his mild attitude – which was an over all disrespectful one, and even now drove Norrington mad. The pirate was having a considerable amount of trouble getting his triangulated arms through the narrow opening, and yanked hard again. The cell shook, and around the tanned, soot ringed flesh of Jack's wrists Norrington saw where the metal had began to chafe, and blood was beading up. Jack stopped at nothing, and kept pulling. "You've made a – " another rattle of iron bars. " – fine mess out of this one, 'haven't you?" 

"I suppose you would have preferred me to turn you over, then," Norrington snapped, and the ship racked again. A distant shout followed, and several others rose to join in. The word was passed for the commodore, and Norrington turned back to Jack with a murderous glare. "What can we do to end this, Sparrow, you know the captain!" Norrington felt the hate behind his question rise up into his throat and he wanted to spit it out like bad liquor, but he managed to keep himself composed. 

Jack snorted. "What can you do, Commodore, but return fire. Your little canons against their little canons, y'know?" He yanked again at the bars, clenching his teeth hard in obvious pain and throwing Norrington another vaguely spiteful glance. And of course a little grin followed. His gold teeth caught the dim light. "Better go, they're calling you."

"We did not come armed for a sea battle, Sparrow, not chasing after the likes of you – "

"Suppose I was more than you expected," Jack winked at him, and took a moment out of his violent thrashing to address him full on. "I'm just full of surprises, mate." Norrington, for the moment, appreciated the fact that he had at least an inch's height on the pirate and could give him a long hard stare. Then he shot a hand out and seized Jack hard by the forearm, the tips of his aristocratic fingers biting into the dark wiry muscle as he held him in place. Norrington's other hand fumbled with the keys, and he quickly removed the cuffs, allowing Jack to reposition his arms and duck out of the bars. 

The pirate's wrists were a bit bloodier than Norrington had really cared to notice, like a trapped animal willing to chew through its own limb to once again gain freedom. The commodore chose to ignore it, and once Jack was standing before him he snapped the irons back on and pulled the other man along. Jack stiffly allowed him to, and slid Norrington a quick dark-eyed side glance. "What exactly do you plan on doing, mate?"

"What I should have done from the very beginning."

"Oh – um, no, Commodore," Jack tried in an attempt to speak appealingly. "- What happened to everything – " Jack was shoved up the steps of the Dauntless, and the dim torch light from the surface broke upon his startled, but dazed features. "- You said, about…"

"I have a crew to consider, Sparrow," Norrington said hard, bracing his self hard against the stair railing when another blast racked the ship. That had to have been the sixth or seventh hit, and the ship was holding fast – but not for much longer. He pushed Jack onward again. "A hundred good souls of His Majesty's Navy are more valuable than the skin of a thieving pirate." 

"There's a wee problem– "

"If you think I'm going to listen to another word you plan on spitting out…"

"Aye, but remember what happened the last time you swept little Jack under the rug, mate?" 

Norrington's steps faltered, and he had to stop for a moment. Countering his rage, he gave the side of Sparrow's face a long considering glare as he debated whether or not to listen to him this time. So far the bloody pirate had not lied, and if he did not do something soon his entire ship would be destroyed. This was truly the downside of being a commodore in His Majesty's Royal Navy. Jack finally seemed to find the courage to look him in the face again, and Norrington released a hard breath. He seized Jack by the shoulders and pressed him to the hand railing of the steps.

"Alright, then. You are going to tell me right now what the 'wee problem' is, or I am going to put a bullet through that thick skull of yours and make it look like you were killed in the attack," Norrington, on any other given day would have been horrified by his own behavior, but now he just gripped Sparrow's thin shirt and shook him once. "Now elaborate. Quickly man!"

"Captain Francisco is Spanish. I'd think you'd know this better than me, but the he's breaking every treaty in the book, mate," Jack motioned vaguely above their heads with his bound hands, and shrugged witlessly. "He hasn't exactly been disowned by his country, I can tell you that much…" 

Norrington scowled. "Are you trying to tell me he's no bounty hunter?"

"Well I'm sure it's a nice hobby, but I'm not the only reason there be a Spanish Captain, hostile, in English waters –" Jack withered beneath another of Norrington's glares when it seemed the Commodore was beginning to doubt him again. "He's no renegade, Commodore, he's one of their own. If word got out that it was not Pirates but the Spanish that attacked the HMS Dauntless..." Jack trailed off, and Norrington released him, hard. He swore viciously. 

"Then he means to destroy us. Even if we do hand you over."

"I believe that's what I said earlier today as well…" At another glare from Norrington Jack obediently ducked his head. "Sorry, mate. S'just that ol' Jack Sparrow is just a pretty face. No one decides to listen to a bloody word he says until they've got a cutlass in their gullet."

"Enough," Norrington snapped, his voice had gone soft with indecision, and he once again took Jack's elbow and lead him up the staircase. "We will strike our colors," he said finally. The firing had ceased, and there was a lull about the deck as they rose to it that was both unnatural, and resigned. Even Jack Sparrow kept his mouth shut and his head respectfully down as Norrington announced his defeat to his second lieutenant. "Strike our colors, and let us negotiate before we lose the Dauntless." 

"Aye, sir," Gillette quietly conveyed his orders to the crew. On the dark horizon, the Fantana watched the flag rise. 

~~~  

"You surrendered, then." 

"Well, I…" Norrington cleared his throat, and busied himself with smoothing the rags that were his pants over his legs. Admiral Hawk did not seem at all impressed with anything Norrington had accomplished so far. The young commodore had been so pleased with himself, so sure of his actions and duty and experience that he had never in a hundred years pictured himself sitting before an Admiral, being judged like a ten-year-old boy. "I would not necessarily call it a surrender. We made a negotiation."

"Did you?"

"Yes."

Admiral Hawk pushed his glasses down his nose, and took the diary of Jack Sparrow into his seat with him, almost protectively. "What were the terms?" As he spoke, a young man set a glass down beside him and began to pour nondescript golden liquor into it. Norrington watched it fill the glass, and for one of the few times in his life, would have been perfectly content to be as he was in that cell the night before: drunk as ever he had been and oblivious to the world around him. "Obviously to hand the pirate over, but how did you manage to get separated from the Dauntless?"

"The first was of course to hand over Jack Sparrow," Norrington recalled, reaching back to out of habit scratch the base of his skull. "But as you know Captain Francisco had everything to lose if word of his presence was to enter the English ports."

Admiral Hawk raised his brows and took a quick sip of his drink, momentarily closing the diary and letting his thick fingers tap against it. "…And? I would think execution, every last man, to be the most appropriate action…how did you manage to escape?"

Norrington shook his head. "I didn't. He spared my crew in exchange for me. The Dauntless he ravaged of supplies and left crippled, where Sparrow and I were taken as prisoners." 

"Did Francisco not think of the Dauntless returning to port and spreading word?"

"That's where my being taken hostage came in," Norrington explained, and the admiral nodded, willing to listen. "I was insurance, to be dropped off from the Fantana as soon as she left English waters. In a life boat, with minimal supplies, he said."

"That still leaves the fact that an entire English crew witnessed the attack of a Spanish ship." The admiral pointed out, balancing the glass between each of his fingers as it rest lazily in his palm. "I suppose you would be discredited with no evidence, of course, and no trace of the Fantana…"

"Precisely," Norrington rubbed his temples with his fingertips, hard, massaging the tense flesh and squeezing his eyes shut. "But I was given two minutes to part with my crew, as a gesture of gratitude for our good sportsmanship from Captain Francisco."

"Well," Admiral Hawk gave a helpless shrug. "That was nice of him."

--- --- ---

"I am not usually so merciful, Commodore," Captain Francisco said, twisting one of those fingers into his dark mustache and watching the younger man with a gleaming black eye. "But your situation breaks my heart. Go on. Part with your officers, my men and I will wait patiently, as gentlemen." 

Norrington was twisted around, and two of the captains men held his wrists firmly together as they were clamped in irons behind his back. He was shoved hard in the direction of Gillette, who still wore his coat, unlike the commodore, but lacked a sword or pistol. He seemed no more than a boy at the moment, but Norrington had no time or energy to be a tutor any longer. He nodded to the pale young man, who averted his eyes as they were given a moment of privacy.

"Five years you've sailed with me, Gillette," Norrington murmured quietly, staring him down and keeping his chin up, back straight, and his feet firm beneath his erect body. Gillette nodded, muttering an 'aye sir' and trying to hold that intense blue eyed gaze of his superior. Norrington's voice lowered to a whisper. "Now you are the one I trust. You are appointed the acting captain, second lieutenant, it is now on your shoulders to bring this crew safely back to port."

"But Mr. Furland is second in command, sir…" Gillette began, but Norrington only dismissed it with another headshake. 

"You are the acting captain. Get to a port as quickly as you can, and re-supply. You tell anyone who will listen of what you have seen here."

"They'll kill you, sir…"

"Gillette, they plan on killing me either way," Norrington moved in closer, so his lips nearly grazed Gillette's ear. The young man looked so scared he could hardly keep his dinner inside, and Norrington knew he was putting the weight of the world on his shoulders, but also did he know that under circumstances as their own men were at their best. And he trusted Gillette to see the Dauntless safely home. "Listen closely. This very well may be the brink of a war. Make note of our bearings, the Fantana's guns, special markings, anything. Do you understand me?"

"Aye, sir." 

Norrington took in a breath to speak again, but one of the Spaniards seized his elbow and yanked him back. He looked through the darkness to give Gillette one more meaningful stare, one as hard as a slap in the face, and chilling as the sea air. Gillette only nodded, and stepped back to allow the crew of the Fantana to disembark. Norrington was guided down the ladder first – the Spaniards did not seem to have any qualms about making him walk down with his hands bound – they awaited with a boat down at the bottom to pull him in if he should fall. 

"Jack Sparrow," Captain Francisco said with a wide smile, his mustache bending around his curved lips and displaying yellowed teeth. Funny how no one seemed to notice how ugly the man was when he had been civil and gentleman like that evening. Jack made a face and ducked out of the Spanish captain's speaking path – even Jack Sparrow had an idea of personal space when it came to his own welfare, but Captain Francisco only moved closer. He leaned in so far Jack's back hit the railing. "It gives me great pleasure to see you again, in chains, finally."

"Yes, well," Jack gave a quick, nervous smile and turned to look at the cold water slapping against the hull, sending spray whirling up. He cleared his throat, and turned back to Captain Francisco with a little shrug. "What can I say, mate, I aim to please."

"Mhm, of course you do," Captain Francisco folded his fat hands behind his back and glanced Jack over, taking in his bound ankles and hands. The pirate shifted uncomfortably before him, and the chains clinked together and against the deck. "I would imagine it to be difficult to make it down the ladder, as your friend the Commodore has done."

"You're probably right, maybe you should just leave me here –" Jack was cut off by one of the captain's fists connecting hard with his already bruised cheek, and in the next few seconds was physically flipped overboard by Francisco, hands and ankles bound as they had been. There was nothing but a yelp before he hit the water, and the crew of the Fantana broke out into uproarious laughter. Francisco leaned over the railing and signaled to the crew waiting in the boats.

"Go on, fish him out, to the rest of you," he turned to Gillette and the crew of the Dauntless, and gave them an ugly smile. He tipped his hat. "I wish you a safe voyage." 

Norrington sat in front of several officers, and kept reminding himself to keep his posture erect and his eyes forward. There was no need to lose his dignity in what would probably be the last days of his life, and he intended to keep every ounce of it. If this was to be his end then he promised himself to not go down as a prisoner, but as a Commodore, and nothing less. That sense of determination and faith in his self lessened somewhat when a gasping, soaking Jack Sparrow was pulled into the boat beside him, and was thrown against his side.

Norrington scowled and leaned away from him as Jack managed to pull himself upright, and instead of asking if Jack was all right turned his eyes up to the side of his ship. They began to depart, each stroke of the oars in the water sounding as foul as a nail on a blackboard. He did not see any of the Dauntless' crew after that.

Beside him Jack shivered, and nudged his with a cold wet arm. Norrington exhaled hard through his nose, and sharply directed his attention toward the pirate. Jack held one of his bound hands up as he spoke, as if he had to trace the syllables as he spoke them. "I would just like to say that was a noble thing you did there, mate." 

"Don't touch me." 

"If you try an' pin this on me, I swear on me mother's grave I'll never speak to you again," Jack said with a lazy tone of mock hurt, and he pulled his arms close to his torso and chest to conserve his body heat. He knew closing in on Norrington or one of the officers would probably get him killed. "Besides, s'your fault we're here in the first place, Commodore."

Norrington shifted restlessly, and lifted his chin higher to the night air. He tried for the most part to ignore Jack Sparrow as he bickered and argued with the officers rowing the small boat back to the Fantana, and kept his eyes on the Dauntless, which, by the very moment was becoming smaller and smaller. Beside him, Jack yelped when one of the Spanish officers walloped him in the back of the head for talking too much – or because they just didn't like him. Which was easy enough to understand. 

Norrington could already see a lot of Jack Sparrow in his near future. More than he really could stomach.

~~~ 

Norrington paused, and felt himself slouch into the angle of his chair. He glanced up at the admiral to check his reaction, and certainly enough the older man looked about as dismayed as the current turning point in his story. He might have even seen real sympathy etched into those aged features. Hawk raised his brows, and sat up in his chair, pulling his chin from his upturned palm. 

"And that is – essentially – how you lost the HMS Dauntless."

"Essentially." Norrington confirmed, keeping his eyes on the way he had unconsciously folded them in his lap. "How I lost the HMS Dauntless."

Admiral Hawk stirred again, picked up the liquor, and reached across the desk to pass it to Norrington. "Here. Have a drink."


	4. A Thrilling Pastime

**Author's Note: **It has been incredibly difficult to finally get this chapter up and running. A virus is on my computer, and I've been literally thrown in and out of my freetime this holiday season, it's been crazy. I tried to keep everyone in character, but Jack Sparrow is the impossibility of reason, and I've even had to watch the DVD a few times to regrasp the reality as Jack knows it. As my sister described it, "Sometimes he has complete control and sometimes he doesn't know what the hell he's doing." I've determined his main behavior categories, however: how he acts around Will and how he acts around Norrington are two completely different complexes. Thank you all for reviewing!

--- --- ---

**CHAPTER FOUR: A THRILLING PASTIME**

--- --- --- 

Captain Francisco had made it undoubtedly clear that he had no interest in keeping either Jack Sparrow or Norrington alive once they had finally passed out of English waters, but the Commodore had never depended on that for his means of safe return. For now, however, he could still use it as a bargaining chip for at least his life; but from the looks of where he was now there was not much time to waste before he would indefinitely have to act.

He and Jack Sparrow had been taken to the very lowest level of the ship, even below the respective brig. Captain Francisco called the little room his "guest of honor" quarters, which consisted of water barrels and a newly applied set of iron bars. It was dark save for a lantern, and Norrington had taken in as much as he possibly could about the ship's design, but it had not been as much as he had hoped. An escape plan would be near impossible, or at least a successful one. 

It was cold, and Norrington had been stripped of his coat. He wore only his white undershirt now, much like Sparrow did, and only he was not soaking wet and shaking like a leaf. The pirate certainly had no qualms showing how incredibly weak he could be. Jack stayed huddled between the two water barrels, arms folded across his chest and his dark eyes set hard on some distant point on the wood panels of the floor. His gold teeth chattered against his white ones.

"You wouldn't happen to have any clothes to spare, would you, mate?" He asked from his corner, and Norrington gave him a distasteful look over his shoulder. There were times when he would rather just take a pistol out and shoot Sparrow rather than follow the code of the Navy, which was to give all prisoners a fair and just trial before sentencing. Norrington had never felt more bitter, but Jack seemed more focused on how cold he was than how exactly they would escape. He poked his elaborately decorated head from behind the curve of the barrel. "Look, I know you hate me, but can we put that aside for now and huddle or something?"

Another venomous look from Norrington and Jack backed off. "It would do you more good to try and think up a way for us to escape rather than sit there and shake all night," He growled, giving their surroundings a survey for probably the twentieth time since he had been so gracelessly tossed into the cell with Jack. There was nothing to help them. No wonder Francisco had decided to use this little hold rather than the actual brig. There was absolutely nothing. Jack stirred in the corner.

"If I may inquire…?"

"What?"

"This escape plan you keep referring to," Jack once again poked his head around the barrel and raised both brows decisively. "What exactly do you think we'll be able to accomplish, eh, Commodore? If indeed we do escape this here cell and break out into the open deck we will be caught and disposed of immediately." Norrington glared over at him, and Jack just spread his hands in further inquiry, making sure to keep his flexibility to surrender to the Commodore whenever necessary open and obvious. "Just pointing it out, mate." 

"Is it your intent to stay here while they wait to kill us both, Sparrow?!" Norrington finally snapped, uncaring how his voice carried throughout their cell and the hold. Jack recoiled at the thundering new sound, and looked round about them as if he feared guards would appear from the thin air and silence them. "I, for one, have a crew to get back to and a ship that was put under my responsibility. I have duties to uphold, and part of my duty is to find any possible way out of here – "

"Even if death meets you first?" Jack finished for him, and Norrington was caught off guard. That was, indeed, part of an officers duty to his fellow crewmen and to King and country – but it had never felt so real and near to him as it had when Jack spoke those words. The Commodore set his jaw and went back to himself, deciding it best to just ignore Sparrow before he killed him out of sheer frustration. The only real moral conflict with blatantly murdering Jack Sparrow was Norrington's respect for himself. He refused to sink so low.

And yet the hours pressed on. Norrington tried to think through every scenario of possible escape, and Jack continued to shiver and make unnecessary and irritating comments. His voice was grading, and Norrington's nerves were as raw as flayed game, yet he still tried to ignore the other man. He remained at the bars of the cell, looking out and watching the closed door as if he expected it to move or open or speak to him. None of that ever really occurred, but just when Norrington was tired enough to begin hallucinating Jack Sparrow began to sing. 

The sound was so slurred and off key that as Norrington turned to look and see if Jack had stumbled across some liquor he wondered if the pirate actually had enough alcohol content in his blood to will himself intoxicated when he needed to. No, Jack had no liquor, but he seemed to have given up on warming up. He leaned against a barrel with his chin to his chest and his finger making eddies around invisible swirls in the space before him. 

"Yo-ho, yo-ho –"

"Sparrow…"

"A pirates life for me! We kindle and char inflame and ignite, drink up me hearties, yo-ho – "

"Sparrow!"

"Yo-ho, yo-ho a pirates life for – " With a speed Norrington knew no man capable of, Sparrow shot to a sitting position in a flash of beads and drying white silk. With a rattle of his hair he turned to his cellmate with wide dark eyes as excited as a boy on his birthday. "I've got it, mate! I think I've finally got it!" Jack crawled on over to the bars and wrapped his calloused fingers around them, deciding to join Norrington in staring at the closed door. "Of course it all depends on our sheer luck, Commodore."

"What does?"

Jack turned to Norrington with the devil in his eyes, their dark shine illuminated in the darkness of their cell and the intensity ignited with his grin. Norrington found himself frowning at the sight of it – it was borderline disturbing and nightmarish, the image of Jack Sparrow's mind working. "My plan, mate."

"Alright, then, what is your plan?" The only reason Norrington found any interest in any plan Jack Sparrow conjured was because he, at the moment, had absolutely no plan and as much as he hated to admit it…Jack Sparrow was clever when it came to impossible odds. Maybe it was sheer luck for the dimwitted – or maybe Sparrow really was, as it was said from port to port, a bloody genius. Jack turned to face him on fully, holding his hands out to speak, as he always seemed to do. 

"We need those guards in this here room." Jack said simply. Norrington wasn't sure quite what he was getting at, but he sat back and watched as the pirate came to his feet and started banging on the doors immediately, and shouted for the guards. The shock of the noise gave Norrington an almost instant headache, and he cried out and clutched the sides of his head, doubling over. At this point he could have guiltlessly killed Sparrow and slept easy that night. "Hey! Hey you lads out there, we need you in here! It's a matter of life in death, mates!"

The door's locks were thrown open on the outside of the door, and finally it swung open. Several Spanish officers filtered in, all scowling at Jack and staring at him like he was mad. To Norrington they just looked bloody angry for being so randomly disturbed by Jack's sudden enthusiasm. Jack felt to his knees beside Norrington and grabbed two fistfuls of his shirt, looking up with as desperate an expression as Jack Sparrow's half-drunken air could muster.

"The Commodore, mate, he's sick!" 

Norrington released his head, and looked over at Jack, completely deadpanned. That was it. That was the magnificent plan Jack had thought up all by his lonesome; the old 'my cellmate is sick, please come in so I can wallop you over the head' gig. He met Jack's eyes, and the pirate tried to signal for him to play along. 

"You've got to come in here, he's going to _die_!" 

"Sparrow."

"Look at him! His head! It's going to _explode_!"

"Sparrow, enough."

"It'll be on your conscience, mate, if you don't help him!" Jack waved the rather unconvincing threat around and discovered he had absolutely no reaction whatsoever. He paused, finding himself directing in the path of some very displeased eyes. Jack grinned, pleasantly. "What would your mother think, mm?" Jack was knocked flat on his backside through the bars, and the Spanish officers stormed out of the hold and back to their posts. Sparrow scowled as he gingerly pulled himself up, and looked over to Norrington with a heavy browed glare. "Why thank you for your support, Commodore."

"Doesn't matter anyway, Sparrow," Norrington leaned back against the bars and absently reached up to smooth his wig down, another of those smug smirks coming to his lips. "They only speak Spanish. I only speak French, German and write in Latin. Pity.  If I ever get out of this fix I'll certainly have to learn it, won't I?"

"Not if you go on spoiling all me brilliant plans, mate," Jack said rather dryly, and moved back to sit between his barrels. "I'd like to see you come up with an idea half as good as mine, then you can go around with your…" Jack shook a finger at him, as if unable to properly express himself. " – Your puffy white collars and smuggy attitude, eh?" This time Norrington's smirk fell.

"At this rate, the Captain will have us both dead by tomorrow."

~~~

"My young Commodore, if I may interrupt…?"

Norrington paused suddenly, a little taken aback by the exuberance by which the admiral so aptly spoke. He nodded. "Please."

"Mr. Sparrow's account differs somewhat here…he claims that his plan did eventually work," Hawk gave the diary a little thump – the diary, the little book that could see them both swinging from the gallows in no less than half a shake. If he and Sparrow's stories did not match up, then by all means the admiral could discredit them and put them away for the rest of their lives, or simply hang them with no more than an hour-long trial. No other evidence supported them. Luckily, the admiral seemed to have some sympathy for his part. "His 'brilliant scheme' that apparently saved both your necks." The admiral finished.

Norrington cleared his throat. "Yes, well, that 'brilliant scheme' had us both floating in the Caribbean sea for two days straight," He shuddered at the memory. The water had been cold, and the sun had been merciless. He was probably several shades darker than any respectable Commodore should have been. Hawk raised his brows and flipped through the diary to find his place again. "I mean, it was fairly clear what had to be done in order to properly escape."

The admiral's face took on a wry grin, and he gave a knowing nod. "There was just no possible way of doing it."

"Exactly."

--- --- --- 

Six hours went by like lifetimes; in truth Norrington had no real idea of how long he and Jack Sparrow sat idle in the hold of that miserable little storage room, seeing as how there was no way to even tell if morning had rose and night had finally departed. He did not sleep. Norrington could barely bring himself to close his eyes, but as least the pirate had gone out of his sight. There was something he could not stand about even looking upon Jack Sparrow. Jack did not seem to take their situation seriously at all.

He remained silent, however, sullen in his corner by the water barrels and as far as Norrington might have known, dead. He only moved again when the pirate attracted Norrington's attention to the dimming flame in the lantern. Jack moaned a wordless dismay, and crawled out to curl his brown fingers around the bars, pressing his face into them and staring intensely at the dying flame. Norrington stirred as well, drawing himself up beside Jack.

"How long has it been?" he asked hoarsely, and already his nerves were raw with the silence and the cramps in his muscles. There was hardly any room to stand in their little prison, and stretching his legs out was near impossible. Jack shrugged, and his darkening silhouette turned to face Norrington solemnly. The lantern died.

"God only knows, mate. It can't be dawn," Jack answered, a straight answer – perhaps one of the first since Norrington had met Jack Sparrow. It earned him a quick glance from the commodore, but nothing more. His dark head moved in the darkness, and his headpieces rattled. The light from beneath the door reflected white on his nearly black eyes. A shadow moved past it. "The watches have changed twice, I know that much."

"What does he think to do?" Norrington asked rhetorically. "Take us both back to Spain or kill us ere we leave English waters?"

"Well I would certainly say there was hope for you if that wasn't a member of His Most Catholic Majesty's army, as it were," Jack shrugged, moving to lean into that little space between the water barrels again and disappearing into the darkness. Norrington remained by the bars. "They'd probably, you know, hold you for a ransom or something very devious and Spanish like," He shrugged thin shoulders, and when Norrington threw him another glance he saw gold teeth catch the bright light beneath the door. "Only problem is he can't have you going back and letting the entire world know what the Spanish are up to."

"So," Norrington speculated numbly, leaning his back into the iron and keeping his eyes focused on the little bit of light that shined opposite the door. "I am to be silenced, then. Never to be seen again," he laughed, wryly. "You would like that, wouldn't you?" Jack said nothing. "And what of my crew? He let them go."

"That man isn't confident because he's mad, mate," Jack said grimly. "He knows your boys won't make it more than three days so far out to see with no supplies and a foiled rudder chain. And when someone stumbles across their remains, they'll blame it on the pirates."

"No," Norrington felt his heart speed up at the very thought of Jack's theory becoming a reality, and he felt his nails bite into the palms of his bare hands. "They may have been stranded but they're not witless. They will find their way back to port." He hoped to the very pit of his soul that his words were true, and even harder did he try to believe them himself. From the corner Jack's grin turned into another steady, silent regard. He nodded, once.

"Well, I admire your faith, Commodore. Even if your boys do make it, you an' me will still be swinging from Spanish ropes," Jack folded his arms, and tucked his chin to his chest as he finished his speech. "Or sinking to the bottom with Spanish bullets in our heads."

"What are you doing?"

Jack glanced up, and Norrington met his dark eyes with a scowl. The pirate shrugged. "Sleeping, if I may. Keep it down, will you, mate?"

"Sleeping?! How can you possibly relax, Sparrow?!"

"Well I just sort of bend my head and then rather subtly drift off, it's quite simple," Jack replied simply, and Norrington threw his hands up. How Jack could always be so calm was a complete mystery to him, but at this point it was just getting irritating. The pirate's face held mild concern. "You might try it, too, commodore. Maybe you'd be, I don't know…" Jack's chin dropped to his chest again. "…Pleasanter."

"Pleasanter. Of course." Norrington snorted, and though he was uncomfortably alert and aware of everything about him, he admitted his exhaustion. The cold seemed to be sucking his energy from his body, and the events of the day had left him weary. He crawled to the corner opposite the cell bars and drew his knees up to his chest to keep his warmth within his own body, and sat like that for what seemed like an hour. Sleep came, hard.

~~~

"And _then_ you were attacked by the guards?"

Norrington stopped, taken aback and utterly confused. His dark brow rose. "I'm sorry?" His question was almost instantly answered when again the admiral waved the little brown diary up in the air again. Of course. Sparrow's drunken account of the events. Whatever it was obviously had the admiral choking in his attempt to hold back laughter. Norrington rolled his eyes, trying at least to keep his dignity out of Jack Sparrow's telling of their misfortune. "I don't recall…"

The admiral ignored the protest, and opened the diary to the appropriate page. He held it up. "If I may?"

Norrington exhaled hard through it nose. "By all means…"

Hawk licked his thumb and flipped the page with unfeigned delight. "'_The Commodore had been knocked senseless by one of the Spanish fellows by the door, and I knew that when next he would return he meant to kill the both of us. I knew the commodore had more in him than the yelps he'd given when the guards knocked him around, and that if we were going to get out of the hold I would need his help, so being the considerate and good hearted man that I am I tried to wake him. _

_'So far I'd had no luck with yelling at him and prodding him, so I hauled off and slapped him. He still didn't wake up, so I hit him again and he sat up like the resurrected dead and started singing old Navy tunes. I asked him if he remembered his name, but all he did was start to have an argument with himself about what sort of rat would win in a fight, an alley or ship rat. After declaring the alley rat a tactical genius, he then turned to me and introduced himself as William Shakespeare, General of the West Indies, and offered to show me some alley rat ground strategies. I slapped him again, and he was back to his usual charming self.'" _Hawk closed the diary over his thumb and glanced up at Norrington, his brows raised in silent query, probably wondering the same thing Norrington was: what sort of mad man were they really dealing with?

Norrington stared straight back at the admiral, his jaw slack and his face three shades paler. He put a dark emphasis on his defense. "How drunk _was_ he when you spoke to him?"

"He was very lucid when I had him write his account." When Norrington tried to come up with how exactly anyone could perceive Jack Sparrow as lucid, Admiral Hawk just waved his hand with another of those tormenting smiles. He removed his glasses. "I am just wondering how exactly this is going to turn out for the two of you. The stories are so different that one would certainly perceive them as false," Hawk gave the diary another wave. "But then there are such details that are strikingly accurate it is insane." He leveled a stare to Commodore Norrington that once again filled the younger man with doubt, and the admiral's wry smile did not give him any comfort. "I would have you both thrown out of my protection instantly if I were not so enjoying this account. Do continue."

"Ah – right, well," Norrington almost wished for another drink, if only to calm his nerves again. "They eventually did wake us both up. In a fairly civil manner."

"And how much longer exactly did you stay in that hold?"

"Not so long as I thought he would keep us down there," Norrington answered. "After we were given breakfast we were taken to see the captain. He only wanted to check our conditions, and let us get some fresh air."

"This 'brilliant plan of escape'," Admiral Hawk put in, folding his arms over his desk and leaning forward. "When did you manage it?"

Norrington hesitated. He drew in a breath. "Well…there was a storm coming."

--- --- ---

"You have been on many voyages, I am certain," Captain Francisco said with his back facing Norrington and Jack, his arms folded behind the small of his back and his dark eyes following the quickly moving clouds as they started to block out the midday sun. It was quickly becoming cooler, and darker by the minute. Captain Francisco turned to face his two captives, chained together, and the gleam in his glance was dangerous. "I assume you have ridden the storm before."

Norrington did not feel like replying. He kept his gaze to the shifting waters, and beside him Jack coughed, once. The commodore half expected Jack to say or do something stupid to annoy the captain, but the pirate seemed more concentrated on the breeze, and the steady rhythm of the ship itself. He narrowed his eyes against the sea air and inhaled deeply, weighing it with his senses and stiffening in anticipation- the eerie quality of watching another captain prepare for certain disaster chilled Norrington to the bone, but he kept a straight face and quietly regarded the waves himself.  

"Of course you have," Captain Francisco's tone was like a vacuum, sucking every ounce of enjoyment it could from toying with Norrington. He could not seem to care less for Jack Sparrow, and took his confident steps up to Norrington with a twisted smile on his face and a vicious demeanor. "Of course you have. You are a commodore, sir. A worthy adversary of the sea."

"I am out here to watch a storm brew?" He asked mildly, and the other man's smile widened. "Is this a favorite pastime of yours?" As if answering a call, the wind seemed to sweep up from the deck and then past them in a dangerously strong gust that sent Jack's hair whipping. Norrington stood firm. Captain Francisco was right: he had seen many storms in his years, but the commodore had always taken them as they came, at every turn checking the safety of his men and never openly challenging the fates. He never welcomed storms the way this eccentric man did, and despite his logical and sensible upbringing, even Commodore Norrington believed there were some forces in nature and in heaven one should not test. 

The deck creaked as the ship moved to satisfy the air, and Captain Francisco looked up into the darkening atmosphere. "Indeed, Commodore Norrington, and a thrilling one," he called out as he turned away, going to stand alone. "I think you will agree."

The distant curtain of grey rain neared, and in a flash of lightening was pouring over them in heavy drops. Jack grimaced and tilted his head back to look at it straight, and Norrington once again shifted uneasily his half of the bonds. The chain between himself and Jack Sparrow was not very long at all, and it made Norrington's sense of independence and free will shrink into the floorboards- that was something he hated. He no longer felt, in the presence of the Spanish officers, like he was set apart from Jack Sparrow anymore. In their world of thievery and brutal injustice, he was almost worse. 

Captain Francisco seemed to hold a sort of grudging respect for him, but not nearly enough to keep him in a standard cell and certainly not enough to count him as any different than the infamous Jack Sparrow. He seemed to be quite infamous himself around these parts, and Norrington could not help but hold back a bitter scowl at the thought of his distinguished record catching up with him. These Spaniards, if what Sparrow said was indeed true, were as close as the Spanish could come to being pirates. Cut throat bounty hunters and spies. Of course Captain Francisco was thrilled to have captured Commodore Norrington. In these late days Norrington had almost forgotten that he had once been Captain Norrington. Most knew him only by that title.

He once again twisted his wrist in the metal ring, and gave a frustrated hiss when once again it only bit his flesh and left him still bound. Being tossed overboard was a likely fate, and if it were to be then Norrington would have preferred to not be chained to the biggest walking live target in the Caribbean. 

"He's mad," Norrington muttered to no one in particular, squinting to keep the stinging rain from his eyes. With his free hand he pushed his wet dark hair from his forehead. "Absolutely mad." Beside him the silent Jack stirred, and when their gazes crossed there emerged that little smirk rather than the solemn patient Captain Sparrow that only moments earlier had occupied the other half of the handcuffs. 

"No, I'm mad," Jack replied, and looked back to the turning ocean. "He's bloody stupid."

"The storm will send us far out," Norrington said, raising his voice when the wind truly began to howl above their heads, and the waves violently roared as they collided with the side of the ship. They were not so high yet. Jack allowed himself a quick glance at the other man. "Chances of returning to English waters now are at this point nonexistent."

"Probably," Jack agreed. His tone earned them several suspicious glances from the Spaniards and one nasty smile from Captain Francisco. "But there is one good thing to come out of a storm like this one, Commodore."

"And what is that?"

"The sharks, mate," Jack called as rain sprayed him from what seemed like all sides, and he shot another dark-eyed look up to the rigging. "They tend to stay far below the waves, you know?" Norrington frowned, and a heavy wave rocked the ship, making him almost lose his balance and knock shoulders with Jack. The rain became even harder, and the spray of the sea washed over them. He quickly straightened, and the pirate turned to him. Norrington once again slicked the wet hair from his brow. "Just out of sheer curiosity, mate- can you swim?"

"Of course I can swim!" Norrington snapped back, lurching and almost stumbling again. "Why?!"

"Because, I think I found my way out." It took Commodore Norrington a good thirty seconds to fully catch on to what Jack was actually planning, and then it all hit him at once. He started to shake his head, but one of Jack's strong fingered hands took fierce hold of Norrington's bicep and lightening flashed in the sky, and roared as it struck the mast. A heavy groan moved above the whirlwind of chaos, but the mast remained standing, though blackened. A heavy splinter fell off, and caused minimal damage upon striking the deck. Jack yanked Norrington to the side as the entire ship lurched. He managed one more look at his fellow captive. "And unless I plan on losing me left arm, you're coming with me."

"You _are _mad!" Norrington snarled. "You want to dive overboard now - ?!" A sharp turn, and the ship seemed to nearly flip onto it's very side. Norrington felt his weight thrown against the flat boards of the deck, and splitting pain followed as his cheek cracked against the wood – and cold water was suddenly all around him, on top of him, under him, as rushing waves beat at the Fantana and washed over her surface. Norrington struggled to his knees and pulled himself out of the water, thankful to still feel the deck beneath his boots.

When again he opened his eyes there was no sign of Jack – had his entire arm been taken off?! - And he felt warm blood pool beneath his skin where his face had struck the plank to form an instant bruise. Another lurch sent him on his back, bending his arm far behind his back at an uncomfortable angle and twisting them hard. The rain stabbed at him, a thousand sharp drops falling all at once and impairing his vision and his senses. He shook his head hard, and jerked his aching body to it's knees, searching around him for Jack. 

A hand twisted into the back of Norrington's shirt, and when he whipped his head around to identify his violator he found Jack. "Not now," Jack shouted, hooking a hand beneath his arm and hauling him to his feet with a quick yank as if to challenge the speed of the ship's lurching. "At the opportune moment," Jack managed to get out, before he thrust Norrington bodily forward, and kept pushing him as he ran blindly into the rain. Norrington could see nothing but grey and foaming waves. And then it hit him, exactly where Jack was headed.

"Sparrow!" He meant to shout, but it was too late. His shins cracked against the familiar wood, and before he knew it the wood was gone and he was no longer on anything. He was falling free, through wind and rain and finally Norrington plunged headfirst into the treacherous, and freezing cold, sea. The water folded and slammed down on top as he landed inside of it, as if in effort to shove him even further down into a personal whirlpool. 

When he was a boy, not fourteen years, Norrington had fallen overboard. It had been nothing like this; just the result of two irresponsible midshipman playing where they should not have, but he remembered the water more fearfully than he had the flogging afterward. It had somehow been worse than the sting of the stick – a cold, pressing, heartless being, the sea. That day he could have sworn it had fingers, and every time he had tried to fight for the surface it had swirled and brought him back down again. Norrington had felt himself begin to sink, and he had panicked. His chest seemed to close within itself.

Now it was the same only worse. The fingers were hands, clawing at him, stinging him with the cold and not allowing even a chance to swim to the surface- the surface. If only he could break the surface he could keep himself above the water. A yank of his nearly numb arm and he opened his eyes, seeing beside him the blurry sight of Jack Sparrow, kicking with all his might to find the surface. Norrington thoughtlessly followed. He begged himself not to breathe. 

After what seemed like centuries he broke the surface, and gasped, dragging in long scouring breaths of cold air and rain that raked along his throat. The burning tightness in his chest eased up as his lungs accepted the air, and despite the chaos and danger around him Norrington felt sick with relief. Beside him Jack blindly fought for some control – his thick dark hair was in his eyes, and when he managed to free his hand to shove it out of the way he looked straight on to the distant shape of the Fantana.

Jack spit out a mouthful of salt water, and he shouted over the wind as he looked over at his chain mate, "Bloody luck that was!"

"Luck?!" Norrington thrust himself up to avoid being sucked under again, but was unable to avoid his mouth being flooded by the foul seawater. He spat. "You call that luck, Sparrow?!" Jack just shot an arm out past the commodore's drawn face, and gestured to a barrel that had fallen overboard with them. It had been split in two, but was still kept together by its iron wrapping, and was quickly escaping their range of grasp. Jack pulled on their chain, and Norrington followed suit.

"_That_ is luck, mate," Jack finally breathed when he was able to throw both arms over the wood. "Or nothin' is."

"Unless of course they come back for us," Norrington replied in as flat a tone as he could manage. "Now that would be bloody fantastic – and I suppose you haven't considered the chance, the very likely chance, that we will die floating on this piece of wood before we find land or are picked up!"

"Well would you rather sink to the bottom with a pirate attached to your wrist or a Spanish bullet in ye skull?" In the moment of cowardice all human beings are guilty of, Norrington considered the fact that a Spanish bullet would be a much faster way to meet his maker. And more importantly, much more dignified.


	5. The Notorious Okabojee

**CHAPTER FIVE: THE NOTORIOUS OKABOJEE **

--- --- --- 

Jack's luck (if one could truly be desperate enough to label nearly drowning three times, but still managing to keep their trembling arms clinging effectively on a split barrel as luck) lasted for the duration of the night, and in the long wordless hours of the dark there had been no sign of the Fantana. At this point, however, Norrington was not so certain of his own gratitude. At least the enemy had a warm, dry hold he would have later retired to, and the odds of a clean death was likely. Captain Francisco seemed to have taken a bit of a liking to adversary, to the length of respecting his surrender. 

Now, in the cold mist of the ocean's morning his arms burned with the ache of clinging on to the soaked wood, and his head had begun to throb. The pain came in battalions, and Norrington raised a shaky hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose, frowning hard and ducking his chin. He closed his eyes, and the time continued to pass on with the gentle rustle of the waves, each one lapping at his shivering body and slowly eroding his tolerance. For everything. Norrington fancied himself a well composed man, controlled, but the last three days – had it been three days? – had tried the limit of that control, as well as the span of his patience. He lingered on the edge.

An little over an hour, perhaps, and his motionless arm that bound him to Jack Sparrow was stirred when the pirate finally showed a sign of life. Jack wordlessly touched Norrington's shoulder, and the other man slowly lifted his head in the direction in which Jack gestured. It was beginning to glow where the sun began to peek above the rolling waves, and he could already feel the warmth start to shine down and soak into the wet material of his heavy shirt. The new feeling sent a prickle over his otherwise numb upper body. He shifted his position on the barrel to better catch the sun.

It was a blessing now, but in three or so hours the rays of the sun would have their hide burned and blistered to the white of their bones. At the thought of a sun burn Norrington realized how thirsty he actually was. With a sudden intake of air he gagged on the dryness of his parched throat. The sea air seemed to scrape at the raw flesh, and Norrington grimaced with every salty breath he inhaled.

"Of course you didn't bother to think about what even one day in this bloody water will do to us," he muttered, not even caring whether or not his neighbor heard him. "We have no water."

"No water," Jack repeated dryly, and gave his head a minimal inclination to look at Norrington. With his eyes as dull with fatigue as Norrington knew his probably were, Jack Sparrow certainly gave the water logged effect an entirely new meaning. His dark hair was like a thing of it's own. It weighed heavily around that tanned face like a stranded creature. "You truly think me an idiot, don't you, Commodore?"

"Absolutely."

"And yet I am the one that bothered to fill me cannies with that nice supply of water we had sharing a hold with us on the Fantana," Norrington ventured a distrusting glare over his shoulder, but certain as the sunrise, Jack slowly produced a full canteen, alertness replacing the groggy cast of his face. It was real enough that the very sound of the fresh water sloshing about in the canteen's belly made Norrington's craving heighten all the more. He flicked a narrow-eyed glare over to Jack.

"Pause and consider," he said nastily, "What exactly will happen to you when the Royal Navy comes sailing by and hears how you made me jump through ignited circus hoops before sparing me severe hydration. Just consider it a moment, and decide what you really want to do."  Jack's dark brows shot up at the sound of that idea, but the young commodore's calm threat did not seem to strike any fear in the pirate. He stroked one of the braided tendrils of his beard, a little smirk pulling up the corner of his mustache at whatever mental image he was getting. Norrington snorted. "If you think I am going to beg for it, think again."

"You will when the sun hits high noon, mate."

The dark lines of Norrington's already drawn brows came down further, and if his stern face could possibly harden anymore, it did. "Give it to me," he said darkly, his voice edged with a dangerous frost. Now generally Commodore James Norrington was a patient man, a gentleman in every aspect of the word, and would have been highly insulted if anyone had ever predicted his next move only a week ago - never in a hundred years would he be caught using such irrational tactics to achieve a goal, but over the course of the past three days, the rational young man had been thrown beneath more stress than most men have to deal with in a lifetime, and his diplomatic side he kept handy for negotiating with impossible sorts had long since evaporated in the Caribbean sun. Especially negotiations with a man he would rather see swinging from the gallows. 

"I don't know, what would you do if you were thirsty enough?" 

Norrington, without first receiving permission from his good senses, threw his left fist so hard into the side of Jack's jaw that the pirate's head snapped back, and he nearly lost his grip on his half of the barrel. Jack hesitated for a moment in utter shock, and twisted back up to a straight position, regarding Norrington with incredulous dark eyes. Still he held onto the canteen with his stiff fingers, and his brows fell back down to give the commodore a pointed look.

"Well that wasn't very nice of you –" Jack began, but another strike from Norrington, this time to the other side of his jaw with the hand bound to the chain they shared, and Jack clumsily lost his grip on the canteen, as well as his balance on the barrel. He reeled back in pain and surprise. 

Norrington caught the canteen with his free hand, and under the water kicked both legs into Jack's chest, sending him several feet away from their temporary float, but not far enough to bring himself down with the pirate. When Jack surfaced again he gave an exaggerated cough and started hitting his chest with a curled fist, hacking up sea water. Norrington ignored him, and uncorked the canteen, letting the cool water quench his thirst as it ran over his dry tongue and down his throat. He allowed himself only two sips as there was no telling how long he would have to stretch it over.

He corked it again and exhaled hard, relief washing over him with the warm rays of the morning sunlight. Through the corner of his mind he heard Jack swimming back, and glanced over his shoulder – it was quite a sight. Sparrow did not look so angry as he was dumbfounded, obviously not having expected such aggression from a man of Norrington's social upbringing. He held his free hand up upon returning to the piece of split wood, signaling his lack of desire for anymore violence, and willingness to share the loot that used to be his with his chain mate. Norrington flicked a disinterested glance over at Jack, but did not return the canteen. 

"You might've just asked for it nicely," Jack said after a moment of dubiously rubbing the tender spot on his jaw, and he leaned into his half of the barrel lazily, the water lapping at his sides and just below the pit of his arms. "Really got me there, mate, I'll give you that. No hard feelings, of course."

Norrington frowned, and turned to address Jack on just what kind of a mood he was really in, and a familiar pain flashed before his eyes white when the other man struck back, balling a fist and driving it into Norrington's left eye. Pressure momentarily jolted the socket and he swore viciously, as he felt the blood quickly rush in around it to form a what would later become an ugly black bruise. He gritted his teeth and withheld a snarl at Jack when he felt the canteen ripped from his fingers.

"That," Jack remarked, jauntily raising the canteen to his lips. "was not something I wanted to do. Took me by surprise, you did." He took a long swallow of the fresh water, and set it on his half of the barrel, then held a sun-browned hand out to the enraged Norrington, raising both brows in a non-aggressive gesture. "Finish it, shall we?"

Norrington hesitated, suspicious. He gingerly reached out to make the truce, but instead of a hand shake he moments later found himself in the position he was before, head snapped back with both of his hands cradling a newly forming bruise. Jack rubbed his knuckles while holding onto his half of the barrel with his elbows, swearing softly to himself. Norrington's already ragged temper snapped completely, and he lunged. This time Jack was quick enough to duck beneath the force of the commodore's fist, and in turn plowed himself into Norrington's chest, shoving the other man down into the cold water. 

The first thought that entered Norrington's anger-clouded mind when the surface closed over him was that if he ever got back to civilization, the first order of business would be to have Sparrow hung up before a firing squad rather than the noose - but Jack's boots halted his ascension, suddenly planted on his chest and shoving him further down below the surface of the water. He forced open his eyes, and the salt water immediately assaulted them with it's sting, but Norrington was just stressed and angry enough to grab a fistful of the other man's trousers and yank him back down. Jack gave a muffled cry, and did not open his eyes in time to avoid another savage slam in the face by his opponent. 

Norrington broke the surface, and Jack followed, both men dragging in deep ragged breaths and at once reaching out to keep the other at bay. 

"You're mad, you pirate bastard," Norrington bit out between clenched teeth. "I'll have your neck for this –!"

"That was the original plan, I thought," Jack gritted through an equally-immobile jaw, his reply having a certain amount of trouble traveling through a constricted throat – Jack hadn't quite noticed at first Norrington's fingers scrabbling to get around his neck, both thumbs pushing into his larynx and shutting most of his voice off. Jack brought his hands up around Norrington's forearms, clawing ineffectively through the wet material of his long-sleeved shirt. "Why should I be – so keen – to give you - water if all you'll – do for me is – " Jack finally dug his dirty nails into the damp flesh of Norrington's thin aristocratic wrists, and ripped the other man's hands from his throat. "- _hang_ me?!"

"You can't expect to live the life you lead and not run into consequences," Norrington spat out, enraged, and jerked in Jack's grip like a cornered animal, his fingers curled stiff to attack. "Do not even begin to think you can place guilt on _me_ for doing my _duty_!"

Jack managed to hold off another thrust of Norrington's violent hands. "Do the words 'extenuating circumstances' mean anything to you, Commodore, or would you hand over your own mother to the gallows if the book told you to, hm?" he reached out and threw an arm over the barrel again so it did not float out of their reach, pulling it to his side and holding on with one arm while unintentionally allowing Norrington another window of attack. Having the upper hand, he evaded the blow and instead grabbed a fistful of Norrington's dark hair (a distant hint of amusement sparked when he noticed that the wig was lost), shoving him hard below the water surface.  This time Jack held him down by the chained hand still twisted in his hair, and a one of his legs slung over the other man's shoulder, forcing Norrington to stay under with the weight of his body. 

"Now that is just about all I can stand, there, mate," Jack called out to his prisoner, trying to balance with the barrel and Norrington beneath him all at once. It turned out to be a difficult task, but an effective one, as Norrington eventually slowed his struggling. Jack smirked, a rueful, rakish grin, far too pleased with himself to release the commodore just yet, but when Norrington stopped moving entirely he, in a half-panic, loosened his grip and hauled the other man up by the arm. Norrington coughed hoarsely, his head bent as he spasms shook his drenched body. Jack leaned in. "Commodore?" 

Norrington snapped up and backhanded Jack, hard, across the face, and his labored breathing was ragged and painful in the deep of his chest. Jack's hand flew to the side of his face as the world tilted wildly, and once again he clumsily tried to stay afloat with the barrel, while still managing to slide Norrington a few quick glances to make certain he did not have another blow to the face coming. 

"Now," Norrington growled, calm aside from his breathless, ragged speech, and yet still managed to sound perfectly murderous. He shivered, despite the sun. His wet dark hair was plastered to the side of his face. "Are we finished?"

"Yes," Jack retreated to his side of the split barrel, and shoved the canteen over as if making clear that both of them could make use of their only fresh water. Norrington nodded, and went on trying to catch his breath. He was in pain, and aside from acquiring a fresh water resource, was in no better shape than he was before. Already purple blotches were beginning to form on Jack's sharply etched face, and he didn't even want to think about how his own black eye was coming along. So far he could still see out of it, despite the expected blurring in the corner, but he took it as a good sign. "You're mighty good at fighting dirty, Commodore," Jack remarked, casually, resting his chin on his wrist as if ready to let the lazy, exhausting hours continue their shift. "If you neglected a shave once in a while, one would mistake you for a pirate."

"And you wonder why I am so keen to hang you."

"Actually I do wonder," Jack said sourly, his dark brows twisting to form a scowl, and his deep-set eyes irate as he turned directly to Norrington. "Considering the first time you arrested me I'd saved the woman you loved, and the second time you arrested me, and so passionately swore to not let my lawlessness continue I'd just got done doing it all over again."

"I don't care for repeating myself, but I cannot forgo my duty on account of one woman," Norrington responded, hotly, and coughed hoarsely into his free hand. Droplets of water began to slide down the sides of his face as his hair finally started to dry in the climbing sun. "You have chosen your path, don't put the consequences on the consciences of others, and certainly do not expect their pity when it comes to your judgment."

Jack snorted at that, and his decorations rattled noisily with the turn of his head. "I know what I do isn't exactly what you respectable folk would call…" He hesitated, keeping one elbow on the wood and holding his hand up with the forefinger twitching pointedly. "…respectable, but at least I take the initiative to improve me situation. S'better than scuttling about with the masses, wouldn't you think so?"

"Most certainly not."

"I wouldn't expect you to," Jack replied, evenly. His body language halted it's flamboyancy in the silence between them, and Jack's visage seemed to quiet as it did at times. "But I always end up paying for what I steal, mate. Comes with the business."

"You pay for nothing," Norrington said flatly. "The only justice you will come to know will be through me, Sparrow. And it is my duty to see justice is done."

"Duty."

"Now I know that at any hint of duty and obligation you tend to shrivel up and die like a demon in Holy light, so I won't press the matter, but it just so happens that I was raised to serve others, and to serve justice, and that those with no respect for such things only lead to the downfall of our society as a whole," Norrington continued to snap, and Jack deepened his frown, but politely waited for the other man to get it out of his system. "I _do_ have something to go back to, Sparrow, and I will see you in the hand of justice if it is the last thing I do because it is my _duty_."

The pirate paused, considering what had just been said and what had not. He absently sucked his bottom lip between his two rows of teeth, and bared his white and gold top one, adding to the effect of his scowl. Jack snorted, and rather than arguing simply turned back to watching the shifting horizon. The sun began to climb even higher, and was beginning to cast a painful reflection on the water. "I'm finding it harder and harder to like you, mate."

Norrington did not look at him, but managed another of his condescending, nasty smiles. From the outside it seemed rather vacant. "Good." A heavy silence fell between them for the next few minutes, the sound of the rolling sea filling the gap, and the gentle brush of the waves slapping against their bodies softly echoed. Jack's mouth twisted upward at one corner with a distant half-smile.

"Nice girl, that Elizabeth," he began. "I would know, I were trapped for a day and a night with her on an island."

"Sparrow…" Norrington exhibited a dangerous warning in those two syllables.

"Just a thought," Jack remarked, lightly. "If I hadn't have been there to dive in after her, I wouldn't have ended up in this mess. You wouldn't be drilling after me, I would have taken that nice, pretty little ship of yours – _the Interceptor_ – and be out there living again," The pirate tapped his three middle fingers once on the wood of the barrel, gave a little shrug. There was a silent undercurrent at the tail end of Jack's statement – it was not entirely true. The Captain and the Commodore could not honestly deny that the young Will Turner, and his love for the governor's daughter that had taken them across the Caribbean to save her life had restored something in the both of them. Jack gave him a sidelong glance. "But there'd be no more of the lovely Miss Swann. Who else would have gone in to get her?"

Norrington drew in his brows, and remained silent. Of course he had thought about that, countless times, since he had nearly lost Elizabeth. It was at times all he could think of: how a pirate came to her rescue when he had failed to, and whether or not it was because of that fateful day, in the end he had, indeed, lost her. Over and over Norrington ordered himself to take heart in the fact that Elizabeth was happy, and that it was all that mattered when everything boiled down, but he was naught but Human, and the pain always returned.

He cleared his throat, flexing his cheek muscle on the side of his face that had been bashed by Jack Sparrow's hard knuckles, and the tender skin pulled painfully. Without another word, Norrington surrendered to his thoughts, and the undetermined wait that stretched before them. Realizing he was to get no more responses from the other man, Jack did a variation of the same thing, and let his chin rest on his forearm again. 

"Just a thought," he finished, quietly. 

The next twelve hours moved like the steady flow of molasses leaving a broken jar, and they had faced the sun as best they could, by daring to flip their halves of the barrel over their heads and holding on beneath the shadow until it simply became too exhausting to support the wood any longer. They silently (and sparingly) shared the canteen, in-taking the bare minimum of required water only a few times throughout the course of the agonizingly long day.

Norrington strove to stay awake, despite his fatigue and the fact that he had gone nearly two days and a night with no sleep. When the afternoon became late, nearly dark, Norrington could no longer hold out, and the surface of the barrel practically pulled his cheek to rest on it. He promised himself it would only be a moment, and he would be on the alert again, but the sleep that fell upon him was heavy and hard. When he finally stirred again, it was near pitch black, and only the cold starlight illuminated the empty sea around them. 

He groggily raised his head, frowning, and surveying their surroundings with the vain hope that perhaps something had been altered. Nothing. The sea was flat, the sky cloudless, and not even a hint that land might be near would show itself. Norrington almost wished he had stayed asleep, but the other part of him mentally cursed himself for letting the exhaustion win the battle. He ran his free hand through his hair, dry but textured with the salty air that clung to it. He glanced at Jack, and the pirate seemed to be wide awake. Jack caught Norrington's gaze.

"Lucid, are we?" He asked, but Norrington did not trouble himself with keeping his eyes on the pirate. Jack did not seem in the least offended, but instead held up a hand, as if what he had to say would most certainly catch the commodore's attention. "Well, I've been doing something thinking, Commodore, while you had your little snooze."

"I don't care what you were doing." 

Jack, once again, did not take offense. "Well just hear me out…let's say that your people come sailing by, and we're picked up. I would most likely be thrown into a brig with whoever the latest prisoner is and continue on with plan A, which is to stretch my neck till I croak, am I right so far?"

"I would say so."

"But what if my people are the ones to pick us up," When Norrington turned with those skeptical blue eyes slit with critical regard, Jack's brows leapt up in further question. He gave a shrug with one of his wiry shoulders. "Where does that leave you?"

Norrington frowned (he'd never actually stopped frowning in the first place). "Unlikely, Sparrow, highly unlikely. Unless your crew somehow managed to repair that poor excuse for a vessel sometime over the last three days."

"Now, now," Jack tsked, managing somehow to fit another set of delicately positioned fingers into the air as well as the conversation. "I was not referring to the Pearl, mate. I've got some other acquaintances that tread these waters, and there's no doubt in me mind that word has gotten around of how your little crusade was accomplished, Commodore."

"And – let me see if I'm following you – you wish to come to some sort of understanding. If by some chance your 'people' come by and pull us both out of the water, you will negotiate my safe return to Port Royal, and should the Royal Navy come to our rescue, I would somehow convince them to let you return to the Kingston Bay," Norrington watched Jack steadily, his eyes and his tone never changing from that flat, unimpressed stare. "Is that what you have in mind?"

"Precisely what I have in mind."

Norrington remained deadpanned. "I have no intention, in any scenario the two of us end up in, of letting you go, Jack Sparrow. If I have to haul you there myself, you will go back to Port Royal to face the justice of the crown, as you should have when I had the chance." Jack stared back, his lips seeming to disappear between his mustache and goatee as they curled tight into his mouth with what appeared to be a fair amount of bottled frustration, and finally he threw his free hand up and made a very irritated noise in the back of his throat, staunchly turning back to face away from his chain mate. Norrington was unmoved. "Perhaps you should have considered the consequences before you decided to begin your career."

Jack impatiently tapped his hard nails on the metal binding of the barrel, exhaling hard through his nose before steering another scowl towards Norrington. "I could quite literally drag you and the entire crew of the Dauntless from a raging hellfire inferno, save each of your lives, and manage to avoid any soot smudges on your nicely pressed uniforms on the way out –" He snapped, with a testy little swivel of his lazily tilted head, "and you would _still_ insist on me swinging from your gallows."

"Indeed."

Jack's ever expressive right hand remained in the night air as he tried to find words to properly convey his argument at the moment, but Norrington did not even give him so much as a glance. He wasn't exactly looking at anything, as there was naught but sea and a black sky, but he certainly did not want to give Jack the satisfaction of his attention. Jack finally spoke again, his voice turning into that low gruff he used when he had the time to calm a bit. Out on the sea, they had all the time in the world. "Did a pirate drop you on your head as a boy, mate?"

Norrington's even face twisted into a scowl. "What?" 

"What if you didn't look at me so much as a pirate, but as a fellow man down on his luck," Jack tried to reason. "I've meself a few character flaws, but I'm certainly not an enemy of the people. I just enjoy the luxuries of fine belongings, a warm bed, and, well, you know. Food on the table."

Norrington flicked him another disinterested glance. "You are wasting your breath, sir." 

"Bloody stubborn, you are," Jack grumbled, and lowered his head back onto his wrist that rested on the barrel, once again retiring to himself. "And bloody obsessed." 

Norrington snorted, but said no more on the subject either. He rather shifted his position in the water, letting it move about him to make sure it wasn't actually a frozen ice block he was floating around in, and followed Jack's example. He kept his eyes open until his lids would no longer tolerate their own weight, and he fell into sleep once more. Norrington woke again when the sun was nearly in the high middle of the sky, and Jack gave his shoulder another shove. 

"Look at that, mate," he whispered harshly, and Norrington groaned, rubbing the sleep from his sore eyes and turning once again to the direction  of Jack Sparrow's jauntily gestured hand. Something swayed on the horizon, a far dark speck. A vessel. Norrington quickly glanced over at Jack, incredulous. The pirate only grinned at him. "I knew you'd like it."

"What is it?"

Jack cupped his hand horizontally over his dark eyes and squinted, pursing his lips so that his mustache curved downward. "I'd say a massive whale, somehow gliding on the surface of the water."

"Sparrow," Norrington warned, mirroring Jack's position and leaning forward to try and get a better view. The dark shape moved towards them, slowly but surely. It was too far off to actually see the flag billowing atop the distant mast. Norrington frowned, giving an uneasy grimace. "It could be absolutely any ship."

"Including our dear friend, the esteemed Fantana."

"Which falls under the category of any, I should think," Norrington said with a little glance of disgust over at his neighbor, and Jack gave a little shrug. "There is nothing to do but wait it out, then, and hope to God and the angels that it's English."

"My fingers are crossed for scallywags." 

"Considering how far we actually are out in this God forsaken body of water, any pirate ship we meet will most likely sell us to the Spanish for six shillings each rather than return a menace like you to Kingston, Sparrow," Norrington had a point, enough to give Sparrow a perplexed expression of consideration, and the pirate uncrossed his calloused brown fingers. Norrington smirked, and turned back to watching the distant shape on the horizon. 

Jack's gaze lingered on the side of Norrington's face a moment, brows furrowed with morbid curiosity as he observed the new bruises on the commodore's face. He didn't have a good view of the swollen purple thing that now surrounded Norrington's left eye, but the trailing black and blue from his cheekbone made for quite a sight. Jack could not resist the urge. He reached and gently pressed a round fingertip against the bruise, earning a bit of a yelp and jump from Norrington, who immediately jerked back in disgust.

"What do you think you're doing," Norrington snarled, his white teeth contrasting against his newly tanned skin. Jack raised his brows innocently, and turned his right palm up to the sky. Norrington just scowled and gingerly prodded the bruise, as if checking it for any sort of horrid pathogen that might have leapt from Jack's finger and onto his face. "I told you not to touch me."

"I never thought to see you this banged up, Commodore," Jack replied indirectly, catching another indignant scowl from Norrington. "And on my account."

Norrington never bothered with a reply, despite how he would have liked to point out the new bruises that marred the pirate's face as well as his. The fight of the previous day had certainly lead to moments of awkward silence throughout their hours of floating alone together, but part of Norrington did not regret the fist he had smashed into Jack Sparrow's rakish face. No doubt, it was something he deserved, and yet in turn Norrington had received a near equivalent beating from the pirate. A thought surfaced, that made his scowl deepen. Perhaps he had deserved what Jack had served him back. He dismissed it as the heat doing his thinking for him.

Before much longer, the ship moved closer in the range of their view, and ended the anticipation of what exactly the approaching vessel was. It turned out, as the astonished Jack Sparrow and Commodore Norrington discovered as they dumbly watched it sail by, not to be an English or pirate ship – but something too big to be a boat, and yet too small to be a real war ship. It did not even appear to have any weapons. 

"Well I'll be damned to Hell," Jack Sparrow murmured, seeming as relieved and tense as the man beside him. He craned his neck to read the boldly painted black letters on the side of the little ship. They reflected the bright glare of the sun: the Okabojee.

~~~

"The _Okabojee?_"

Norrington cleared his throat, uncomfortably reaching back to scratch the back of his neck. "The Okabojee."

"The Notorious Okabojee that Jack Sparrow claims in the beginning of his testimony to have spontaneously burst into flames, leading to his capture?" Admiral Hawk demanded, leaning back in his chair and staring Norrington down, concernedly. "It gives me no pleasure to blatantly not trust your word, sir, but I must ask, does this ship truly exist?"

The commodore nodded, a little more enthusiastically than he would have liked to. "Yes – what could make it any less real than the Dauntless or the Black Pearl?" Admiral Hawk's brows arched again, and he pointedly held up the diary of Jack Sparrow's testimony. Norrington made a face. "Oh."

"Oh." Hawk pursed his lips and watched Norrington once again get that utterly bewildered expression on his face, and sink low into his chair. It was amusing, to say the least, but the admiral admitted to feeling a bit of sympathy for the extremely strung-out young man. If indeed he was the commodore he claimed to be, enough proof lay in his physical appearance for his story to be true. Initially he had mistaken Norrington for a drunken, blundering pirate. He cleared his throat, and Norrington regarded him through the corner of his blood shot eyes. Hawk waved the diary once. "Hn?"

"Hn," Was Norrington's noncommittal reply, and he buried his face back into the hand that shaded his brow. Admiral Hawk took it as a yes, however pained, and inhaled to read.

"I quote, '_The ship that eventually came to our rescue was not a pirate ship, nor an English one, but rather the Notorious Okabojee had by chance been sailing by once again amidst our disaster. The Notorious Okabojee seemed untouched by the earlier flames spread by the Pearl _(as you can see, he contradicts himself)_, and I later found her to be both crewed and captained by a single man going by the name of Lord Fredric Von Kronenburg. A china man._'" Admiral Hawk glanced up to observe Norrington's reaction. He got another hesitant glance. "Well?"

"It's true." The two words came out more as a mumble.

Hawk's brows hiked even further up his forehead, if such a feat was possible. "It's _true_?" 

Norrington tried uncrossing his legs and re-crossing them again. "Yes."

"It's been some years since I was anywhere near the China sea, but…" He pushed his spectacles up the bridge of his nose. "…Fredric Von Kronenburg is not – at all – Chinese. Very German, actually." Norrington just shifted his eyes from one side to the other before reluctantly going back to look at Admiral Hawk, and the young man sat up straight again, still managing that sense of dignity even in the face of such ridiculous material. The old man sighed resignedly, and waved a dismissing hand. "Nevertheless, there you are, sticking to your word."

"It's difficult to explain."

"That I will believe," Admiral Hawk said with a note of wry amusement, and sat back comfortably in his seat. "So. This Von Kronenburg. He was hospitable?"

Norrington nodded. "He threw a rope over the side of his ship without even asking our nationalities," he continued. "We did not quite take the accepted offer right away, however. It seemed far too convenient, and we were still thinking with half a brain each."

Admiral Hawk cracked a dry half-smile. 

--- --- --- 

"It's rather far-fetched, I'll give you, that we should trust a completely strange ship that had quite literally wandered out of the middle of nowhere," Jack mumbled for only Norrington's ears, both hands curled around one of the ropes the China man in the little ship had tossed over without so much as a word. Norrington held his tight as well, looking back from Jack to the silent China man leaning over the railing of the deck. Jack snorted. "But I've got more chances of surviving with a stranger of a China man than with the likes of you, or the whim of the sea."

Norrington grimaced. "I fear you just might be right," The commodore twisted the rope around his wrist to secure his grip, and breathed out. "Well?"

Jack Sparrow gave a rakish grin. "Might as well give it a go, eh?" With a firm tug on each rope, the two abandoned prisoners were hauled out of the sea and onto the blessedly dry deck of the Notorious Okabojee.


	6. Fish and Chips

**Author's Note: **So… this fic has been stale for about, two years I think. Two or three years. I'm a little older, a little wiser, I'm already lying about my age but I rediscovered my fanfic when I saw pictures of Norrington in the 2nd movie. I enjoyed it, for the most part but I won't say anything else about it and I hope all of you reading won't let the movie influence how you see these characters in this story.

Again—sorry for the two year wait, but here is chapter six. Boy, do I feel bad. A thousand apologies!

_Zeech_

--- --- ---

**CHAPTER SIX: FISH AND CHIPS**

Silence over took the room, and the desk between Norrington and the Admiral seemed like miles upon miles of awkward disbelief. Norrington had at least settled somewhat comfortably in his seat, as he and the Admiral had been speaking for some time now. The Admiral was quickly skimming over Jack's version of the events, just to see if the two stories matched up. He ran a withered finger over his bottom lip as he read, and after a moment or two glanced at the accused over his gold rimmed spectacles.

"And—you were still chained together."

--- --- ---

Whether or not Jack's slight miscalculation to let go of the rope seconds before Norrington had was in fact not a miscalculation at all, but actually an attempt to rip Norrington's arm out of the socket, none may ever have known. Norrington's six-foot-fall was broken by Jack's shoulders, and the commodore took enough pleasure in the yelp he earned from Jack upon accidentally jerking his arm behind his back. Jack thrashed like a fish until his chain mate rolled off of him several feet away to wheeze the last of the seawater from his lungs.

"Bastard," Norrington spat, and tried to roll back onto his belly without getting too close to Jack. The pirate pulled himself up on both elbows and shook his head to clear the fog. He coughed, twice, and raised his free hand to give the other man a reason to call him a bastard. Instead his attention was redirected to a neatly folded pair of trousers, topped with a white undershirt, and Jack closed his mouth, seemingly puzzled. Norrington squinted at his own stack of clothing, and frowned up at the new shadow that lay across them.

"I am sorry," a small man said, in very poor English. "I have no spare boots on my boat. You must let your boots dry out. Come," he offered both hands out, one to each of them, and pulled them up to tower over him. "Please, come with me and change your wet clothing."

Norrington was dashed in bruises of all shapes about his face and more than likely, other parts of his body. He was burned by the sun and wind, and shaking with cold from the breeze and the sting of the sea. His clothing hung about him, heavy, and his belly boiled in hunger. Jack, no longer interested in having his arm ripped from the socket, patiently waited for Norrington to take the first step towards the china man's direction. The commodore let their host get several feet away before following.

The sun was beginning to set, and the breeze was more of a chill across the bland deck of the Okabojee. Norrington repressed a shiver, and fell inconspicuously out of the lead between himself and Jack. He said in a very low murmur, "Tell me what you think."

Jack frowned, looking perhaps even more puzzled, and whispered back, "Think of what?"

"Are we headed into a deathtrap? Could this be a very well thought-out set up?"

Jack kept the dry clothes tight to his chest. "I think I know what we're headed for, commodore," Norrington scowled at him, and Jack pointed toward the cabin. "Fish and chips."

"Fish and ---" Chips. Inside the cabin, on the wooden table, there were two plates set on opposite sides of the surface with rice made into cakes and slices of cooked fish. The smell made Norrington's stomach growl and his mouth water, but he just glanced at the china man and waited.

"Please," he said. "Change your clothing and I will find something to rid you of that chain." The china man exited the cabin, and left Jack and Norrington alone. It occurred to Norrington several times during the walk into the cabin that this man had no idea whether his new guests were going to put a bullet into his back or not. The china man did not think to himself why they were chained at all: were they escaped prisoners on a ship to the new world, were they –

"Pirates," Norrington muttered, and began fidgeting with his buttons. He paused, and glanced over at the other man beside him, who was watching. "Turn around."

"Can't."

"Oh for the love of God," Norrington began to force his tattered undershirt over his head before he realized that it would be far too complicated to remove before the chain that still joined him to the pirate was extricated. Jack only waited patiently for the China man to return, seemingly aware that they would not be separated until he returned with something to undo the locks on the Spanish binds. The heavy wooden door pushed slowly open and the China man appeared, wielding a set of long silver skewers.

He moved Norrington's wrist into his reach and placed it onto the table beside the wall. He began working at the lock with a slow, even pace. There was no sign of frustration, or perspiration brow, though it did take several attempts. Norrington gritted his teeth—the removal of the iron clamp was painful, and when it finally snapped open the Commodore saw why. The flesh about his wrist had been rubbed and chafed raw, to a stinging bright pink along his otherwise darkly tanned arm. The damp air of the cabin made it sting.

Clearly the China man had come prepared to treat the after effects of the chain, and on the table beside himself and his guests he began to lay out a bowl, and very small spoon and a soft white bandage. Norrington watched in silence as he began to mix a sort of meal-paste in the tiny stone bowl, and spread it thickly onto the bandage. It was wrapped neatly around the injury, and after the cold shock of wet paste actually began to calm the stinging pain.

"Oatmeal," the China man said. "Will heal skin."

"Thank you," Norrington breathed. "That is much better, thank you---I hadn't realized the skin had broken," he tentatively pressed the bandage closer to the skin, and nodded over at Jack. The China man started towards the other man, who took several steps back. "I imagine his is the same way, sir, if you would not mind making him healthy for the firing squad."

"Ah, actually," Jack uncomfortably pulled his sleeves down below his wrists, as if covering his modesty. "I'm---don't worry about that scratch, mate, it's---you really don't have to, I'm made of stern stuff, I am, and –" The China man only regarded him quietly, with a blank expression, and held out the bowl of oatmeal paste.

"Will heal wound," he insisted, and Jack shook his head quite enthusiastically. The China man stood completely still, and watched Jack, unnervingly, as if trying to decide why the other man would not want treatment for a likely painful wound. Norrington snorted, and took a seat before one of the steaming plates.

"He's a pirate," the Commodore said, plainly, and earned one of those blank, dark-eyed stares from Jack. "He would prefer you not to see the brand, but it really makes no difference," the China man glanced over at him in reply, which pressured Norrington to make more of a proper introduction. He stood from the table to make a short bow, and laid a hand on his since browned chest. "I am Commodore Norrington. This is Jack Sparrow. He is my prisoner, and we were en route to Kingston before my ship was attacked. His Majesty would be most grateful if you would aid us in completing our journey and set sail for Kingston immediately. You will be compensated when we arrive in the bay."

The China man just nodded very slowly, and politely at Norrington before departing the cabin. Jack threw his hands up, and thrust himself on the bench beside Norrington, moving headfirst into his plate of fish and rice cakes. He did not immediately begin eating, and instead chose to give the other man a long steady look before picking at the cakes, and breaking a piece off.

"We can't help each other now, Commodore," Jack said. "Not now."

"There is nothing we could have done for one another, Sparrow," was all Norrington said, and broke his fish apart with the side of his fork. The food was lacking somewhat in flavor, but it was salty, and hot, and settled inside of him with a warm comfort that blanketed over him as the hour rode on. The China man offered all the fresh water they could drink, and it was greatly appreciated. Their host brought he and Jack several plates before they each decided they had eaten enough, and neither of them neglected to thank their rescuer. He was a man of very few words, and when Norrington finally built up the nerve to ask the China man's name, he was quite surprised to hear that the man spoke more English than he initially let on.

--- --- ---

"Yes, yes---the gentleman, Lord Fredric Von Kronenburg," the Admiral breathed, somewhat impatiently, as he set Jack's diary down and removed his glasses. He drew out a long-tempered sigh. "I feared this name would surface in your account as well."

"Well, I…" Norrington blurted, and realized he had started a sentence with no real defense to end it with. He stared at the Admiral, and finally only managed a small shrug. "That was how he presented himself."

"With no visible signs of a crew, no ship hands, nothing but a fish and rice cake dinner…" Admiral Hawk looked down his nose into the re-opened diary. "---And warm, dry clothing…you must have been somewhat relieved. No sign of a threat on this man, apparently. From what you speak of his nature he seems very passive, no _real_ danger besides the Fantana." The older man arched a gray brow. "Were you not suspicious that this man could have possibly been an ally of Sparrow? A pirate himself?"

"His demeanor was neutral. He hardly spoke a word, save when spoken to and even then it was hard to do. In fact," Norrington frowned. "He paid Jack no mind at all. He seemed to respect that I once had authority, and saw that Sparrow was traveling with me as my captive, and my responsibility."

That statement was a stretch, and Norrington felt that awkward pull again at his nerves. That familiar struggle to keep Sparrow under his thumb, in his line of sight… it had been almost impossible to accomplish. At every turn the pirate had nearly made an escape, and the China man was no more on Norrington's side of that struggle than he had been on Jack's. Norrington had known it then, and he knew it now.

"But he wasn't, was he?"

Norrington snapped back into the world around him. "Sir?"

"Sparrow, traveling as your prisoner. He wasn't. Not _really_," Admiral Hawk said slowly, and Norrington tried to make sense of the other man's motive. He averted his eyes, and frowned thoughtfully, and found nothing to debate the statement. The Admiral changed the subject. He let the idea slide, and moved gracefully forward. "It seems 'Jack' stumbled upon his own break. You said that the China man never agreed to take you to Port Royal, or any other military port. He seemed willing to steer the two of you away from the law, and you claim that is neutral?"

"He had his reasoning," Norrington put in. "He warned us of that, of coming to the surrounding forts. He told us that it would endanger the two of us in equal share."

Admiral Hawk rolled his eyes and made a face. "Meaning?"

Norrington's appearance since that night on the deck of the Okabojee had hardly changed in the least, and the words spoken by the China man had eerily unfolded to be true. The once noble Commodore sat before a man of honor in tatters, a ghost of what had been. He cleared his throat, and leveled his eyes with the Admiral. "He meant to warn me that it was a strong possibility that I might be mistaken for a pirate as well, especially keeping Sparrow in my custody. Sparrow agreed. Naturally."

"_After_ the Kronenburg fellow had departed."

"Yes."

A slow, disapproving smile spread across the Admiral's mischievous features, and the old man seemed to be having considerable trouble holding back something between a sly comment and good, long laugh. Instead, he just let his eyes fall upon the open diary. "This is where your stories begin to match, almost perfectly I see," he glanced up at Norrington, shameful. "And you fought him. Again," the laughter was tight in the man's voice, but still did not erupt. His amusement at the other man's torment was bordering cruel. "Such a gentleman, you are. Composed. Rational. Respectable."

--- --- ---

Looking back, Norrington supposed he waited for Lord Kronenburg to leave the cabin before his assault on Jack because he felt somewhat under the eye of a better, but regardless, the moment the door closed behind the China man Norrington had already dive tackled Jack Sparrow into the bunks. When they hit the mattress, Norrington was jarred by the impact, and Jack found a window to bat the other man back off the bed and hard onto the floor. The back of the commodore's head cracked the plankes, and Jack followed him, muffling his shout by burying an elbow into the other man's diaphragm.

Norrington rolled painfully onto his side with his arm cradling his winded middle, dragging in long agonizing breathes back into his body. As he lay there, in the seconds beneath Jack Sparrow's weight, he considered why he had even attacked the pirate in the first place. Jack had called him a pirate. Jack had lowered him from a pedestal he had made himself quite comfortable on. Jack discredited him. Jack was the reason why his crew was possibly a drift in still, dead waters.

And yet, no matter how many times Norrington hurt the man, Jack always ended up back on top.

"Commodore," Jack breathed, hard, and Norrington squinted up at him in time to see the other man touch the shine of red blood beneath his nose and scowl on it. "Please behave yourself, at least until we go our separate ways."

"Sparrow,"

"Yes, Commodore," Jack made no move to get off of the other man, and instead just stayed up with one leg holding his arm in place and the other pressed into Norrington's back. He straddled Norrington's side heavily, and it made it exceedingly difficult to even try to move.

"When we go our separate ways, you will be plummeting a full four feet to your death at the end of a noose," Norrington jerked quickly, and his arm wrenched from beneath Jack's knee. The pirate was still examining his bleeding nose, and did not quite react quickly enough to avoid the back of a fisted hand colliding his chest. He stumbled over to somewhere at Norrington's heels, and quickly found a long-fingered hand twisted in the back of his decorated dark hair.

Jack cried out, an irritated noise that meant he was now in perhaps one of the more foul moods his general personality allowed. "Commodore!" he snarled in an uncharacteristically deep voice, but Norrington ignored him and pushed his face into the wood, and twisted one of his tensed arms behind his back. For a moment Norrington released his hair, allowing the man to shake the new daze off before he spoke.

"Something to remember," he bit out, almost a sneer. "You are still my prisoner, and I am still your captor—" the words provoked a hard thrash from the pirate beneath him, and Jack bucked once, twice, but Norrington held fast his ground. "I am _not a pirate_. I am not _you_, I am your better. I am a man of scruples, and moral fiber, and honor. Y_ou_ are a criminal who will pay for his crimes. You," he hissed, and shoved Jack's face harder into the wood with a speedily growing anger, a hate he did not recognize within himself. "_You_ will be the one to swing from the yard arm!"

The longer he held Jack in place, the slower his own heart began to pound. He began to calm, and breathe deeply, and the anger began to fade into a deeper sense of control over himself. Jack's fight began to wear thin as well, and the thrashes died to a hard, concentrated rhythm of one breath after the other. Norrington kept a palm pressed into his bruised cheek. A thrust of pressure, and another. Jack was finally entirely still. He lay silent as death, with eyes set on something to the right of them, slightly unfocused.

Norrington released his grip on the other man's arms, but still kept his weight a centered hold on the pirate.

"Stop fighting me," he finally warned, quietly. "You must have known it would come to this. Do not feign ignorance, Sparrow. You have known all along." Jack was very still, as if the reality of death lingered in his mind, and he was made speechless by it. He took in a sharp breath in the quiet cabin, and the dark eyes closed.

"Sorry, Commodore," he murmured against the floorboard. His face was frozen, a portrait of serious dread. Norrington frowned, puzzled. "But I already told you," he considered taking Sparrow's arms again, and a moment too late. "I have a horrid fear of the noose, to be truthful." Norrington reached for the white-sleeved arms, and an elbow found itself way hard into his ribs, and that he could have taken and remained composed. It was the second buck from Jack's hips that brought him crashing to the floor that set his temper on fire again.

All heat, Norrington pulled himself off of the cabin floor to counter but Jack was already up, and stomped hard on his ribs again before darting like a cat for the door. He was stepping just out of the frame when he realized his enemy had done the same, and wrapped both arms tight around his ankles. Jack buckled with no balance, and came to the floor again. Hard.

--- --- ---

"I was," Norrington murmured, quietly--almost to himself. "Once, I was a gentleman."

"A gentleman."

Norrington's brow furrowed so hard his head began to hurt, but he still turned his eyes to the Admiral in his own defense. "Yes."

"You smashed his face into the deck, sir, is that the behavior of a gentleman?"

"Sir---"

"It is the behavior, sir, of a pirate," Admiral Hawk said sternly, all wild eyes on the accused. Norrington could not tell if he was playing with him or not. "Been in many bar room brawls, my lad? It certainly seems as though you've been schooled in fighting very dirty."

"In my situation, I stand by my behavior."

"You tried to strangle him," a simple statement taken from Sparrow's writings. A surprised expression. "Twice."

"Yes, while he was trying to disembowel me with fishing equipment," Norrington did not realize how high his anger was rising until he felt it in his face. The Commodore's heart began to pound, and blood pumped furiously through his veins. "He'd made a complete blithering fool out of me, of the King's Navy, of all I stand for—yes. I tried to strangle him. Twice."

"And did you like it?"

Norrington stopped. His anger cooled like hot, liquid metal inside of him, and as all rage left him he felt heavy, and certainly unprepared for such an insinuation. He cleared his throat, and shook his head, squinting hard at the Admiral. "Did I like what?"

"Strangling Sparrow, of course, did it bring you any sort of pleasure? As a Commodore, you should have seen many battles in your years---you know what it is to kill, but did you find any rush at all in draining the life out of a face you are familiar with? A man that you know?" The Admiral insisted on an answer, leaning forward and with his short fingers he fit his spectacles back over the bridge of his nose. "Or did none of it really touch you, at all? Perhaps you felt nothing."

His hands had been so tired at that moment. They ached as they tightened around Jack's throat, a throat so vulnerable and at the mercy of all the strength Norrington's hands still possessed. It was not much, and yet when Jack's struggles slowly began to cease, and the body beneath the Commodore had finally began to go limp, Norrington realized he had pushed himself just far enough to finish the job. It had been that jarring realization that had pried stiff fingers from Jack's neck and allowed the pirate to breathe.

"No," he lied, and made no effort to hide the glare in his dark blue eyes. "I take no pride in acting on my temper. I find myself in a place I do not like to be, and these… scuffles… they just happen."

Admiral Hawk laughed, once. "And yet they come to you so naturally, young man," he smiled. "Remind me not to tempt your anger in a dark alley after a bad day."


End file.
